Edna O’Brien, who died last year at the age of 93, is the subject of a new documentary.

Ireland’s Literary Femme Fatale

The James Bond producer remembers Edna O’Brien, the pioneering writer whose books were once banned for their depictions of female sexuality

By Barbara Broccoli

I first met Edna O’Brien through a family friend, Abba Schwartz, who had invited her to a party at my parents’ house. I was only a teenager but completely enamored with this hauntingly glamorous literary femme fatale.

Being a Catholic schoolgirl, I was aware of Edna’s legend; that her first six books were banned in Ireland and, rumor had it, even burned for their explicit sexual passages. In The Country Girls trilogy she spoke the unspoken language of female longing, which made her an irresistible read.