Edna O'Brien, one of Ireland's foremost literary figures, will give a lecture on James Joyce, "Recalling Joyce," at Cornell University on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. The lecture will be followed by a reception.

The following day, O'Brien will participate in an informal colloquium and discuss her writing, Joyce and the craft of a novelist, memoirist and playwright. The colloquium is at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 28, in the English Department Lounge, 258 Goldwin Smith Hall. All events are free and open to the public.

O'Brien grew up in Ireland and is the author of numerous plays, screenplays, television plays and more than 20 books of fiction. Her candid depictions of female sexuality in her fiction caused her books to be banned in Ireland in the 1960s. Her most recent novels include "Wild December," "Down by the River," "House of Splendid Isolation" and "In the Forest." She also is the author of "James Joyce," a volume in the Penguin Lives series.

Her recent plays include "Triptych," produced at the Irish Repertory Theater in New York in 2004, and "Family Butchers," currently on stage at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. An honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, O'Brien now lives in London.

The lecture is supported by the Eamon McEnaney Memorial Reading Fund, administered by the English department's Program in Creative Writing. McEnaney, a student athlete who graduated from Cornell in 1977, died in the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.