Queen Camilla has paid tribute to groundbreaking Irish writer Edna O’Brien after her passing. 

The Queen’s Reading Room has shared a statement from The Queen to mark Edna O’Brien’s passing at the age of 93 on 27 July. 

The statement reads, ”The literary world mourns the loss of one of its true grandes dames, Edna O’Brien, whose acute powers of observation and fearless, beautiful prose touched so many lives across the globe. I, with thousands of fellow readers, will miss her greatly, but we will be forever grateful for her genius. Camilla R. ”

Queen Camilla is an avid reader and many of her chosen patronages and charities are based on literacy and reading. 

She began The Queen’s Reading Room, an online book club, in 2021 to help foster community through reading (then known as the Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room). 

Camilla chose O’Brien’s novel Girl in the second season of the Reading Room; a book based on the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping. 

O’Brien published eighteen books, several short story collections, eight non-fiction books, and several plays. Her 1960 novel, The Country Girls, was lauded for helping to break the social stigma of discussing sexual and social issues in Ireland.