Frank O'Connor  (1903-1966) My Oedipus Complex LINKS No links found. BIOGRAPHY Frank O'Connor (1903–1966)  Born Michael O'Donovan in Cork, Ireland, O'Connor later adopted his pen name to separate his civil-service career from his writing career. His family's poverty forced him to leave school at age fourteen. During the Irish struggle for independence, O'Connor served in the Irish Republican Army, and after the establishment of the Irish Free State, he worked as a librarian. Despite his lack of formal education, he became director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He moved to America in the 1950s and taught at Harvard and Northwestern. A storyteller in the great Gaelic oral tradition, he appeared for a time on Sunday morning television. A perfectionist, O'Connor constantly polished and reworked his stories. He added to his stature with fine critical studies of the novel (The Mirror in the Roadway [1956]) and the short story (The Lonely Voice [1963]), and introduced Gaelic poetry to a wide audience through his English translations.