Edna O’Brien, the Irish author whose sometimes controversial works explored the lives of girls and women, has died at 93, the New York Times reports.

O’Brien was born in County Clare, Ireland, and educated at a convent in Galway. When she was a teenager, she moved to Dublin and found work in a pharmacy. She was married for a period of time to the author Ernest Gébler; after the two divorced, she moved with her children to London.

In 1960, she published The Country Girls, about two young Irish women who move to a big city to escape their strict Catholic upbringing. She wrote two sequels to the book, The Lonely Girl and Girls in Their Married Bliss; all caused controversy because of their depictions of sex, and all were banned in Ireland.

She would go on to write more than 20 other novels and short story collections, including The Love Object, I Hardly Knew You, The High Road, Time and Tide, and The Light of Evening. Her most recent book, the novel Girl, was published in 2019; after it was published, she suggested that it might be her last.

O’Brien was remembered by admirers including Irish President Michael D. Higgins, who wrote, “Edna was a fearless teller of truths, a superb writer possessed of the moral courage to confront Irish society with realities long ignored and suppressed.”

And on the social platform X, poet Kathryn Gray wrote, “Edna O’Brien has left us. I cannot quite express the beauty of first discovering her work, when I was a 16-year-old, happening upon The Country Girls in Olchfa Comprehensive library. I loved it—love it still, with that thrill you can never forget of your most cherished books.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.