She Died Young

The harrowing and inspiring memoir of Academy Award-winning actress Brenda Fricker. She Died Young is the literary work of an astonishing mind in which intellect, madness, art and raw honesty unite. It is as far from a ‘celebrity memoir’ as you can get. With humour, honesty and a poetic sensibility, Brenda Fricker traces a life-journey in which her resilience and inner strength shine brightly. With luminous memories of happy summers in Kerry, where she and her sister Gránia got up to hilarious mischief and learned to rebel against Irish orthodoxy, she also explores devastating personal challenges. She talks frankly of her complicated adult relationships. She describes the difficulty of surviving sexual violence and living with mental illness. Brenda’s contributions to theatre, film and television represent an artistic legacy that few can match. Her work in films like The Field, Swann, The Swallow, Home Alone 2 and My Left Foot is widely acclaimed and her character, Megan, in TV series Casualty, was a huge success. She is the first Irish actress to win an Oscar.