Portail des médiathèques du réseau Paris-Saclay

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with oustanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

The Sunday Times bestseller: Girl is the new novel by the legendary Edna O'Brien, author of The Country Girls (dramatised on BBC Radio 4 in August 2019). Captured, abducted and married into Boko Haram, the narrator of this story witnesses and suffers the horrors of a community of men governed by a brutal code of violence. Barely more than a girl herself, she must soon learn how to survive as a woman with a child of her own. Just as the world around her seems entirely consumed by madness, bound for hell, she is offered an escape of sorts - but only into another landscape of trials and terrors amidst the unforgiving wilds of northeastern Nigeria, through the forest and beyond; a place where her traumas are met with the blinkered judgement of a society in denial. How do we love in a world that has lost its moorings? How can we comprehend the barbarism of our enemies, and learn forgiveness for atrocities committed in the name of ideology? Edna O'Brien's new novel pierces to the heart of these questions: and the result is her masterpiece.

ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' As dramatised on BBC Radio 4, Edna O'Brien's iconic trilogy of novels - The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl and Girls in their Married Bliss - depicts the lives and loves of two girls in rural 1950s Ireland. Edna O'Brien's debut novels revolutionised Irish literature in the 1960s. Banned by the authorities as 'indecent and obscene' and burned by the clergy, they were instantly notorious for their frank portrayal of sexual desire: but scandal soon became fame, and made this coming-of-age story a bestseller and instant classic. Caithleen 'Kate' Brady and Bridget 'Baba' Brennan have grown up in the repressive atmosphere of a small Irish village after World War II. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a reckless survivor. After being expelled from convent school, they dream of conquering the bright lights of Dublin - but are rewarded with bad faith, bad luck, and bad sex; marry for the wrong reasons, then betray for the wrong reasons; and fight - in their unique ways - the expectations forced upon young 'girls' of every era that dictate the women they become. Published in an omnibus edition with a new foreword by Eimear McBride, Edna O'Brien's portrait of innocence and youth, love and despair, hope and reality, continues to inspire new generations of readers with its bravery, lyricism, humour, and courage.