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
Nov 1
Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, The Serial Killer
Harriett Gilbert welcomes Nigerian author Oyinkan Braithwaite into the World Book Club studio to discuss her internationally bestselling debut, My Sister, the Serial Killer — a darkly comic thriller that has captivated readers around the globe.This is the story of two sisters, Ko ... Show More
50m 40s
Oct 4
Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Mexican Gothic
Harriett is joined by Silvia Moreno-Garcia to discuss her chilling bestseller Mexican Gothic. The story begins when Noemí Taboada, a glamorous socialite from 1950s Mexico City, receives a desperate letter from her cousin Catalina, claiming her new husband is poisoning her. Unsure ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 6
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles
Join us for a special episode of World Book Club as we journey into the fog-shrouded moors of Devon to explore The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle—arguably the most iconic and enduring novel in the Sherlock Holmes canon. First published in 1902, this gothic master ... Show More
1h 2m
Recommended Episodes
Sep 13
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Davina McCall, Papua New Guinea, Jung Chang, Fawning, Sophie Ellis Bextor
Davina McCall, one of TV’s most popular presenters has a new book out, Birthing, co-written with the midwife, Marley Henry. Davina joined Anita Rani to talk about her stellar career so far, including hosting Big Brother for 10 years, campaigning for better menopause care and buil ... Show More
55m 13s
Aug 2024
Modern-day matriarchs
Traditionally women often take on much of the responsibility for practical and emotional support for a family as well as passing on family knowledge and traditions. But is the role still relevant? Datshiane Navanayagam talks to women from Canada and the UK about being a modern ma ... Show More
26m 28s
Oct 21
Grooming gangs, Eve Muirhead, Lily King, Menopause
Two sexual abuse survivors have resigned from their roles on the national inquiry into grooming gangs. Fiona Goddard and Ellie Reynolds both stood down from the victims' liaison panel which was overseeing the process. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced in the summer that t ... Show More
54m 14s
Sep 2024
‘The Cleverest Woman in England’
Jane Ellen Harrison was Britain’s first female career academic, a maverick public intellectual burdened with the label ‘the cleverest woman in England’. Her quips and quirks became legendary, but many of those anecdotes were promulgated by Harrison herself. Mary Beard joins Tom t ... Show More
40m 26s
Mar 2024
Judy Blume
<p>Bestselling children’s book author and literary legend Judy Blume takes us back to her childhood New Jersey kitchen in the ‘40s, where she ate lamb chops and baked potato scrapings as a baby. She also shares a precious memento: her mother’s little yellow recipe box, filled wit ... Show More
36m 35s
Jun 2025
The Vicar of Bray's Daughter
In her early twenties Carol Cairns, the daughter of a priest in Ireland, had a passionate affair with a young bohemian poet called Benedict Ryan. In the Dublin of the 1960s, their improbable partnership burned bright but briefly. Somehow the gap in their backgrounds was too great ... Show More
28m 57s
Sep 2024
Jeni Jaye is Britney Spears
As part of the upcoming Tribfest 2024 happening in Irish Village, Mark speaks to Jeni Jaye who is paying tribute to the music of the one and only pop princess Britney Spears. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
12m 39s
Sep 2024
Dame Tracey Emin, Doreen Soulsby, Dame Maureen Lipman, Young Adult Fiction
Dame Tracey Emin, one of the most famous artists and leading figures of the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s. Hers is a uniquely provocative, confessional style which confronts issues such as trauma of abortion, rape, alcoholism and sexual history. In recent years Trac ... Show More
56m 40s
Apr 2020
Young Carers, Elizabeth Strout, Matilda McCrear
How are young carers coping in the lockdown? We hear from 17 year old James who looks after his mum and grandma. And Dr Kate Blake-Holmes joins us too. She's a social worker at the University of East Anglia and is carrying out research into this area. As we experience lockdown, h ... Show More
49m 17s