logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2024
26m 25s

Edna O'Brien: The Country Girls

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Following the death of the Irish author Edna O’Brien in July 2024, another chance to hear a 2008 World Book Club episode in which she talked to Harriett Gilbert and an audience of readers about her renowned debut novel The Country Girls. Banned in her homeland on publication, it has become one of O’Brien’s most admired and renowned works.

Producer: Oliver Jones

Image: Edna O'Brien, pictured in 2009 at the Hay Festival (Credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)

Up next
Oct 20
In the Studio: Joachim Trier
Another chance to go behind the scenes with director Joachim Trier as he makes the follow-up to his international hit The Worst Person In The World. Stephen Hughes got exclusive access to the set of Sentimental Value, following the film from pre to post production. In a series of ... Show More
26m 36s
Oct 16
The Arts Hour: Visionary filmmaker Boots Riley on his radical new movie I Love Boosters
Nikki Bedi and critic Leila Latif celebrate this year’s London Film Festival with international directors of some of the most playful and provocative upcoming titles.African-American auteur Boots Riley explains the heady cocktail of comedy, shoplifting and politics in his film, ‘ ... Show More
48m 26s
Oct 9
The Arts Hour: Tom Cruise on his latest film Digger
Nikki Bedi speaks to Sudanese Russian director Suzannah Mirghani about her latest film, Cotton Queen and discusses this week’s cultural highlights with critic Hanna Flint: Tom Cruise and Oscar winning Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu on their new film, Digger Oscar wi ... Show More
47m 46s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2021
Edna O’Brien: Love, Loss and Literature
<p>Edna O'Brien's first novel, "The Country Girls," was banned in Ireland, and burned in her own home parish.  The year was 1960, and young Irish women of that era were NOT supposed to reflect on their lot in life, or harbor sexual desires. But Edna O'Brien had one goal as a youn ... Show More
48m 46s
May 2024
Anne Enright
Irish novelist Anne Enright is the author of seven novels, including The Gathering, winner of the Booker Prize in 2007. Her 2012 novel The Forgotten Waltz won the Andre Carnegie Medal for Fiction and her novel The Green Road won The Irish Novel of the Year in 2015, the same year ... Show More
43m 20s
Aug 2019
Growing Up With Toni Morrison
By the time Toni Morrison died last week, a whole generation of readers had come of age in a world where she was already a legend. So, on this week’s show, we’re talking to women about growing up with Morrison’s books—how they first discovered her work, and what it’s meant to the ... Show More
32m 56s
Jun 2019
Elizabeth Gilbert on Travel After "Eat, Pray, Love"
For this week's episode, we sat down with the best-selling author to talk about how travel has changed for her since that infamous Eat, Pray, Love adventure, and the role it now continues to play during her grieving process after the loss of her partner, Rayya. Plus, she also exp ... Show More
39m 39s
Jul 2021
A Heartbreaking Novel About Mothers, Daughters and Secrets
<p>The latest pick for Group Text, our monthly column for readers and book clubs, is Esther Freud's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/books/i-couldnt-love-you-more-esther-freud-group-text.html" target="_blank">“I Couldn’t Love You More,”</a> a novel about three generati ... Show More
56m 44s