My Antonia

The final novel in Willa Cather‘s acclaimed Great Plains Trilogy, that includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SARA WHEELER My Antonia tells the story of Jim Burden, a young orphan sent to live with relatives in the plains of Nebraska, and the life of his neighbour and friend, Antonia Shimerda. While Jim is a native Virginian, Antonia‘s family are recent immigrants from Bohemia, and they grow together as Jim tutors Antonia in English. While their childhoods are shared, however, their paths soon begin to diverge, spurred on by the effects of dire poverty on the Shimerda family. And while Jim enjoys academic success and a white-collar job, Antonia remains in the fields that raised them, dedicating herself to her land and domestic duties. Cather‘s novel was met with instant acclaim: in it she paints a portrait of the beautiful, unforgiving Nebraskan landscape and honours the lives of ordinary people during a pivotal era in American history. ‘One of the warmest, most quietly rousing books that I know; a clear-eyed salute to the resilience of the human spirit‘ Guardian