O Pioneers! by Willa Cather; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Kathryn Yarman

O Pioneers! is a story of the immigrants who came to America to build new lives for themselves. Struggling against poverty, ignorance, drought, and storm, they came to love and understand the land, until it rewarded them with a richness exceeding all imaginings.

The Bergsons are a family of strong-willed Swedish immigrants who have come to make a living on the great prairie. When the father, John, dies, worn out by disease and debt, his eldest daughter, Alexandra, becomes the head of the family. This is the story of her love affair with the land—an American Midwest that is vast and golden.

“A direct human tale of love and struggle and attainment, a tale that is American in the best sense of the word.” ––New York Times

“Yarmen’s reading is one of the best I have heard on audiotape! Her tempo and modulation are especially noteworthy, adding tremendous emotional impact to the interactions and experiences of the characters.”—KLIATT

One of the great American writers of the twentieth century, Willa Cather enjoyed distinguished careers as a journalist, editor, and fiction writer. She is most often thought of as a chronicler of the pioneer American West. Cather's fiction is characterized by a strong sense of place, the subtle presentation of human relationships, an often unconventional narrative structure, and a style of clarity and beauty.

Willa was born on December 7, 1875, in Back Creek Valley, Virginia. In 1883, the Cather family moved to Nebraska, where her father opened a loan and insurance office. Willa attributed the family's lack of financial success to her father, whom she claimed placed intellectual and spiritual matters over those of the business. Her mother was a vain woman, mostly concerned with fashion and trying to turn Willa into "a lady," despite the fact that Willa defied the norms for girls, cutting her hair short and wearing trousers.

After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1895, Willa was offered a position editing Home Monthly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While editing the magazine, she wrote short stories to fill its pages, including a collection called "The Troll Garden" in 1905, which caught the attention of S. S. McClure. The following year, Willa moved to New York to join the editorial staff of McClure's Magazine. She eventually became managing editor and saved the magazine from financial disaster. After the publication of "Alexander’s Bridge" in 1912, she left McClure's and devoted herself to creative writing. A year later, Willa published her bestseller O Pioneers!—a celebration of the strength and courage of the frontier settlers. Other well-known novels with this theme are My Ántonia and the Pulitzer Prize–winning One of Ours.

Willa's prolific success lead to a period of despair, but after she recovered, she wrote some of her greatest novels, including The Professor's House, My Mortal Enemy, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. She maintained an active writing career, publishing novels and short stories for many years until her death on April 24, 1947.