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The final novel by the legendary Irish icon Edna O’Brien, author of The Country Girls. 'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose – there's no one like Edna.' Anne Enright 'Girl broke me in two: a hard and beautiful miracle.' Eimear McBride 'An extraordinary act of imagination.' J.M. Coetzee 'Glittering energy . . . Exemplary.' Colm Tóibín I was a girl once, but not any more . . . A young Nigerian woman, barely more than a girl herself, must learn to survive with a child of her own, in a world which seems entirely consumed by madness. As she navigates a landscape of terrors and trials, ruled by Boko Haram, can she find a place of safety within a society blinkered by mistrust and denial? ‘Astonishing.’ New Statesman ‘Raw and transfixing.’ Observer ‘A masterpiece.’ Irish Independent ‘Mesmerising.’ Sunday Times ‘Devastating and moving.’ Daily Telegraph *Winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2020; longlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction; shortlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction; shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize 2020*
The final novel by the legendary Irish icon Edna O’Brien, author of The Country Girls.
'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose – there's no one like Edna.' Anne Enright
'Girl broke me in two: a hard and beautiful miracle.' Eimear McBride
'An extraordinary act of imagination.' J.M. Coetzee
'Glittering energy . . . Exemplary.' Colm Tóibín
I was a girl once, but not any more . . .
A young Nigerian woman, barely more than a girl herself, must learn to survive with a child of her own, in a world which seems entirely consumed by madness. As she navigates a landscape of terrors and trials, ruled by Boko Haram, can she find a place of safety within a society blinkered by mistrust and denial?
‘Astonishing.’ New Statesman
‘Raw and transfixing.’ Observer
‘A masterpiece.’ Irish Independent
‘Mesmerising.’ Sunday Times
‘Devastating and moving.’ Daily Telegraph
*Winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2020; longlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction; shortlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction; shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize 2020*