Country Girls Read online

  The heave of the ship intensifies as Baba, using her cupped hand as a loudspeaker, calls through the darkness about the notes of the melodeon.

  Baba (loudly) We’re on our way … English and American papers please copy.

  Curtain.

  About the Author

  Edna O’Brien was born in County Clare, educated by the Sisters of Mercy in Galway and graduated as a pharmacist before going on to write her first controversial novel, The Country Girls, in 1960. Since then she has written over twenty-five books, including Wild Decembers, In the Forest, a biography of James Joyce and most recently, Byron in Love. Her plays include A Pagan Place (Royal Court, London), Virginia (on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf, Haymarket, London), Iphigenia (Crucible, Sheffield), Our Father (Almeida, London), Family Butchers (Magic Theatre, San Francisco), Triptych (Southwark Playhouse, London) and Haunted (Royal Exchange, Manchester). Awards include Yorkshire Post, Los Angeles Times, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Irish PEN, the European Prize for Literature, Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin and the American National Arts Gold Medal. In 2011, Edna has been awarded the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award for Saints and Sinners.

  Copyright

  First published in 2011

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2011

  All rights reserved

  © Edna O’Brien 2011

  The right of Edna O’Brien to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  The Waste Land taken from Collected Poems 1909–1962 © Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd

  All rights whatsoever in this work are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever, including performance rights, must be made in advance, prior to any such proposed use, to Ed Victor Ltd, 6 Bayley Street, London WC1B 3HE. No performance may be given unless a licence has first been obtained

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–28309–5 [epub edition]