The Love Object

'O'Brien writes the most beautiful, aching stories of any writer, anywhere.' Alice Munro



'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like O'Brien.' Anne Enright



'Heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride



'A profound intelligence spurred on by a tangible, fizzing joy.' Megan Nolan



'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett



'A revolution.' John Banville



'Glittering energy.' Colm Tóibín



Spanning five decades of writing, and winning the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, The Love Object collects the most luminous stories by Edna O'Brien that have bewitched generation after generation. Here you will find tales of families, feuds, enchantment, despair, and the manifold bonds of love. There are stories about the tension between country and city life, the instinct towards escape and nostalgia for home; always crafted in shimmering prose.



Edna O'Brien wrote more than twenty celebrated novels, including her classic The Country Girls Trilogy, as well as multiple plays and works of non-fiction, which have been translated into over thirty languages. Her final novel was the acclaimed Girl, which won the Kerry Group Prize for Fiction in 2020. She was the recipient of many accolades, including the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Arts Gold Medal, the Frank O'Connor Prize, the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature and the David Cohen Prize for Literature. In 2018, O'Brien was appointed an honorary Dame of the Order of the British Empire, and in 2021, she was also awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years before her death on 27 July 2024.