Edna O'Brien, iconoclastic giant of Irish literature who penned The Country Girls, dead at 93
![Novelist Edna O'Brien, April 4th 1960. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) A person is seen posing in a black and white photo.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7278138.1722193922!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/1472332566.jpg)
Edna O'Brien published more than 20 books, most of them novels and story collections, and would know fully what she called the "extremities of joy and sorrow, love, crossed love and unrequited love, success and failure, fame and slaughter."