O'Faolain, Nuala 1940–2008

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born March 1, 1940, in Dublin, Ireland; died of lung cancer, May 9, 2008, in Dublin, Ireland. Journalist, television personality, memoirist, and novelist. O'Faolain was a popular columnist for the Irish Times for more than ten years, beginning around 1988. That might have represented her legacy to the world of Irish letters, had not a publisher suggested that she compile a collection of her columns into a book. The introduction that she intended to write for the collection provided an unexpected outlet for a flood of reflections that burst the confines of an essay and became a memoir that stunned her Irish readership and reverberated throughout the English-speaking world. Are You Somebody? The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain (1996), penned at a particularly bleak time in the author's life, is the story of a tough childhood and a lonely adulthood, punctuated with occasional, ultimately painful love affairs. The most notable of these, with Irish journalist Nell McCafferty, shocked a country accustomed to circumspection in such matters, particularly a lesbian relationship. But O'Faolain's candor, her brutal honesty, and her dismal outlook for the future struck a chord of sympathy that resonated with readers, especially Irish women, and generated critical praise around the world. O'Faolain then wrote a novel, My Dream of You (2001), a fictional story of a woman not unlike herself, whose quest for passion falls somewhat short of success. While O'Faolain never discovered optimism for her future, she never lost faith that she was "somebody," and her quest for fulfillment continued. Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman (2003) updates readers on her search, which ultimately took her to the United States, where she was a fellow at Yaddo in 1999. O'Faolain had begun her career as a television producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation and later for Radio Telefis Éireann. She was the presenter of a documentary program on women's lives that attracted the attention of a newspaper editor at the Irish Times. O'Faolain spent the rest of her life as a columnist, with occasional media appearances and interviews related to her literary career and, near the end of her life, her impending fate. Her last book, a quasibiography titled The Story of Chicago May (2005), earned the Prix Femina, a prestigious French award for writers, in its foreign book category.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

O'Faolain, Nuala, Are You Somebody? The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain, New Island Books (Dublin, Ireland), 1996, published as Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman, Holt (New York, NY), 1998.

O'Faolain, Nuala, Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, May 13, 2008, sec. 2, p. 6.

Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2008, p. B7.

Times (London, England), May 21, 2008, p. 66.

Washington Post, May 12, 2008, p. B4.