
Wild Colonial Girl
Essays on Edna O'Brien
University of Wisconsin Press
Will be published approx. on 29. June 2006
Book
Hardback
186 pages
978-0-299-21630-6 (ISBN)
Description
Since the 1960 publication of her first novel, "The Country Girls", award-winning Irish writer Edna O'Brien has been both celebrated and maligned. Praised for her lyrical prose and vivid female characters and attacked for her frank treatment of sexuality and alleged sensationalism, O'Brien and her work seem always to spawn controversy, including the past banning in Ireland of several of her works. O'Brien's attention to "women's" concerns such as sex, romance, marriage, and childbirth has often relegated her to critical neglect at best and, at worst, outright contempt. This essay collection promises to be a long overdue critical reevaluation and exciting rediscovery of her oeuvre. "Wild Colonial Girl" situates O'Brien in Irish contexts that allow for an appraisal of her significant contribution to a specifically Irish women's literary tradition while attesting to the potency of writing against patriarchal conventions. Each chapter's clear and detailed readings of O'Brien's fiction build a convincing case for her literary, political, and cultural importance, providing an invaluable critical guide for an enriched appreciation of O'Brien and her work.
Reviews / Votes
Readers of Edna O'Brien's lyrical fiction can discover or revisit in Wild Colonial Girl the favorites-Kate and Baba, the mother and the Virgin Mary, Sister Imelda, ancient and modern Ireland, Breege and the Irish Revolutionary soldier-all in a search for selfhood amid sexual conflict, ambient guilt, and social paradoxes. Irish author Edna O'Brien has long merited this breakthrough scholarly study."-Grace Eckley, editor of NewsteadMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Wisconsin
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
431 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-299-21630-6 (9780299216306)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Lisa Colletta is assistant professor of English at Babson College. She is the author of Dark Humor and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel and the editor of Kathleen and Christopher: Christopher Isherwood's Letters to His Mother. Maureen O'Connor teaches English at the National University of Ireland, Galway.