Edna O'Brien mastered the art of reinvention

THE opening sentence of Girl, Edna O’Brien’s last novel is, I think, unforgettable: “I was a girl once, but not any more...” And from there O’Brien, who died on Saturday, takes the reader into the unimaginable horror of the abduction and rape of the Chibok schoolgirls by the Islamist group, Boko Haram.

- Melanie McDonagh

O’Brien had read about a young girl found in the forest who had escaped with her rape-baby but lost her mind. Her pity fired, O’Brien set off to Nigeria with £15,000 in cash stuffed about her, to talk to the girl survivors and visit the displaced persons’ camps. She came back with boxes and boxes of notes to turn into that spare novel back home.