My Antonia

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Of Antonia, the passionate heroine of Willa Cather’s greatest novel, the narrator says that she left ‘images in the mind that did not fade - that grew stronger with time’. The same could be said of the novel itself. On one level it is a straighforward story, beautifully written, of the struggle for survival of a family of pioneers on the vast Nebraska plains. On another it encompasses history, the relationship ofhuman beings and the natural world, and the destiny of the individual - even as it lovingly and unsentimentally portrays a woman whose robust spirit and enduring warmth make her emblematic of what Cather most admired in the American people. ‘The time will come when Willa Cather will be ranked above Hemingway.’ - Leon Edel

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Willa Cather was born on December 7, 1873, in rural Virginia. In 1912 Cather published her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, which received a lukewarm reception. The next year, she caught the attention of the literary world with the appearance of O Pioneers!, exploring and celebrating frontier life in the American West. In 1918 she made her most lasting contribution to her status as one of the most celebrated post–Civil War American authors with the publication of My Ántonia. Willa Cather died on April 24, 1947, in New York City, where she lived for thirty-nine years with her companion, Edith Lewis. Her reputation equalled that of any published American female novelist of her day, and critical and popular attention to her work continues to expand. Many -critics place her firmly among such lauded -American authors as -William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, and there are those who would argue that hers is the single finest craft of her generation. INTRODUCER BIOGRAPHY: Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions.