Edna O’Brien, one of Ireland’s most celebrated authors, turned 90 on Tuesday, but retirement isn’t in the cards for the acclaimed novelist.
O’Brien, the legendary author of The Country Girls and Down by the River, told the Guardian that she’s hoping to write one final book.
“I do have one in mind but I’m not sure I have the energy or the existence to carry me through,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll manage it but I do know that I have always written with truth and feeling. I have not abandoned those qualities ever, and I never will.”
Many literary observers thought that O’Brien’s most recent novel, Girl, would be her last. The book received critical praise; a reviewer for Kirkus called it “a heartbreaking tale and a singular achievement.”
O’Brien shared some of her regrets with the Guardian, saying, “I did not have that brilliant a life in many ways.”
But other authors disagreed, paying tribute to her in the Irish Times.
“To read Edna O’Brien is to know love; of words, of literature and of life itself,” said Eimear McBride (A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing). “No one does it the way she can so I’m hoping for 90 years more.”
And Amanda Craig (In a Dark Wood) said, “The starry new generation of Irish women writers owe everything to her courage, her dauntless spirit and her artistic brilliance.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
