The Prairie Trilogy is series of three novels centered around life in the Midwest during the late 19th/early 20th centuries by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather.
First, in ‘O Pioneers!, ‘ we meet Alexandra Bergson, who inherits the family farm after her father dies and leaves her to care for her three siblings. While many immigrant families are giving up their farms and moving back to the city (or to their home countries), Alexandra decides to try to tough it out on the prairie.
Next, in ‘The Song of the Lark’ we are introduced to Thea Kronborg, a Colorado piano teacher who discovers she has an amazing singing voice and, despite the long odds, attempts to become a world-renowned opera star.
Finally, in ‘My Antonia, ‘ we follow the lives of two protagonists: orphan Jim Burden, who is shipped off to Nebraska to live with his grandparents after his parents die, and Ántonia, a young farm girl who is struggling to survive raise her family out of poverty.
Three of the most celebrated novels of the mid-twentieth century, the books comprising ‘The Prairie Trilogy’ helped cement Willa Cather as one of the most important writers of her generation.
Circa l’autore
Willa Cather was an American novelist who wrote tales of the Great Plains and stories of immigrant and migrant families who settled the American West. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her book ‘One of Ours, ‘ which explored romantic idealism, the frustrations of life in middle America and how World War I profoundly changed the lives of the young men who fought in the conflict. It was published in 1923. Cather was born in Virginia, but her family relocated to Nebraska when Willa was nine years old. They settled in the town of Red Cloud, where her father initially attempted to become a farmer, but eventually moved into the real estate and insurance business. Willa attended school for the first time after the family arrived in Nebraska. Eventually, she would graduate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and spend ten years in Pittsburgh, working as a teacher and a magazine editor at Home Monthly, often contributing her own stories and poems to the publication. After working at the Pittsburgh Leader, Cather moved to New York and began working as an editor at Mc Clure’s Magazine where she also contributed stories. They would eventually serialize her first novel, ‘Alexander’s Bridge’ in 1912. Cather followed up her first book with what would become known as the ‘Prairie Trilogy’: ‘O Pioneers!’ (1913), ‘Song of the Lark’ (1915) and ‘My Antonia’ 1918. By this time, Cather had firmly established herself as a writer and her Pulitzer for ‘One of Ours’ would forever cement her as a major figure in American literature. Her follow-up, ‘Death Comes for the Archbishop’ (1927) would be cited as one of Modern Library’s Best 100 Novels of the 20th century. She lived with her domestic partner, Edith Lewis, for 39 years before developing breast cancer and dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1947. She is buried beside Lewis in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.
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