'Kind, mischievous, brave': Irish writer Edna O'Brien dies aged 93

The Irish writer Edna O'Brien, who explored the complications and contradictions of women's lives in a literary career lasting more than halfa century, has died aged 93 after a long illness, her agent has announced.

- Richard Lea

In a series of novels beginning with The Country Girls that were at first banned in Ireland but feted abroad, O'Brien gave voice to women struggling with the oppressive and hypocritical expectations of rural life. Her focus widened in later works such as House of Splendid Isolation and The Little Red Chairs, but always maintained the keen intelligence and daring that made Philip Roth once hail her as "the most gifted woman now writing fiction in English".

Her publisher, Faber, said she was "one of the greatest writers of our age". "She revolutionised Irish literature, capturing the lives of women and the complexities of the human condition in prose that was luminous and spare, and which had a profound influence on so many writers.

"A defiant and courageous spirit, Edna constantly strove to break new artistic ground, to write truthfully, from a place of deep feeling. The vitality of her prose was a mirror of her zest for life: she was the very best company, kind, generous, mischievous, brave.

"Edna was a dear friend to us all, and we will miss her dreadfully. It is Faber's huge privilege to publish her, and her bold and brilliant body of work lives on."

Born in a village in County Clare in 1930, O'Brien was the youngest of a large family, with a father who was a drinker and a gambler - a childhood full of "money troubles, drink troubles, all sorts of troubles".