Join our next Public Books Circle meeting with Rosalind Hackett.

Edna O’Brien’s novelis a harrowing portrayal of the young women abducted in 2014 by Boko Haram--one of the largest Islamist militant groups in Africa. Narrated by Maryam, one of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls, and set in the deep countryside of northeast Nigeria, this is a brutal story of incarceration, horror, and hunger; a hair-raising escape into the manifold terrors of the forest; and a descent into the labyrinthine bureaucracy and hostility awaiting a victim who returns home with a child blighted by enemy blood. It is a work that resonates with O’Brien’s lifelong concern for women and girls in trouble, yet it also attracted criticism for cultural appropriation.

Author bio

Edna O’Brien (b. 1930), an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories, has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. Like the works of her predecessors James Joyce and Frank O’Connor, some of her books were banned in Ireland. Among her most popular novels are The Country Girls(1960), (the first volume of The Country Girls Trilogy), which was followed by The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss(1964). The Little Red Chairs(2015) received wide praise for its finely observed characterization of an Irish village woman who has an ill-fated affair with a war criminal in hiding. In March 2021, at the age of 90, Edna O'Brien received France's highest honor for the arts--commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

How it works:

Our Public Books Circle meets online one Wednesday a month and is free and open to the public. Each of our sessions is led by a UT professor, and everyone is welcome to add their voice to the discussion!

• Register for the book discussion meeting by clicking on the registration link (you'll be sent a confirmation email with your own unique link to the discussion)
• Buy a copy of the book (Union Ave Books in downtown Knoxville will be happy to handle your order)
• Read, enjoy, and join the book discussion online on the date of the event!

Registration Link

Rosalind I.J. Hackettis Chancellor’s Professor Emerita, and Professor of Religious Studies Emerita at the University of Tennessee, where she taught for thirty-five years.  She is also Extraordinary Professor, Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.  She publishes in the areas of indigenous religion, new religious movements, gender, art, human rights, and conflict in Africa.  She has many ties to Nigeria, having taught and conducted research there since the late 1970s.  Since 2004, she has also worked on/in war-affected Northern Uganda, with a particular focus on the plight of abducted girls and women.