Audiobook · read by volunteers
My Ántonia
Willa Cather (1873–1947)
Read by rachelellen, Katie Gibboney, Ransom, Sharon Bautista, Julie Pandya, Wendy Belcher, Kim S, Stephanie Dupal-Demartin, Chrystal Layton, Nikki Sullivan · 46 chapters · 8 h 06
About the book
A boy from Virginia, newly orphaned, is sent to live with his grandparents on the Nebraska plains, and on the same train travels a Bohemian family bound for a neighbouring farm. Willa Cather’s novel follows the Shimerdas and their eldest daughter, Ántonia, through the harsh early years of settlement, as immigrant families break the prairie sod and make homes in a land that is at first utterly strange. The story is told in memory by Jim Burden, the boy on that train, now grown, with a deep love for the landscape and a quiet attention to the courage of ordinary lives. Forty-six parts, read by ten LibriVox volunteers, last about eight hours. This is a moving, beautifully written portrait of a place and a friendship, and a classic of American literature.
Introduction
Willa Cather, who lived from 1873 to 1947, was an American novelist whose books about life on the Great Plains made her one of the leading writers of her generation. My Ántonia, published in 1918, is often counted among her finest achievements and belongs, with O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark, to the group of novels in which she wrote about the prairie.
The book follows several immigrant families who settle on the Nebraska plains, and above all a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is Ántonia. The narrator, Jim Burden, who arrives in Nebraska on the same train as the Shimerdas and knew Ántonia as a child, looks back on those years with affection, and the novel is organised as a series of books, beginning with the arrival of the Shimerdas, each with its own chapters. Cather’s prose is spare and clear, and her attention to the changing seasons and the open land gives the novel a strong sense of place.
The book is classed as historical fiction, and it is also a meditation on memory, friendship and the immigrant experience. Cather treats her characters with respect, and her sympathy for the settlers who struggled to make a living in a new country has made the novel a favourite for generations of readers.
The recording has forty-six parts, beginning with the introduction, and is divided among ten LibriVox volunteers. It lasts about eight hours. Today it is worth hearing for its beauty of language, for its portrait of an America in the making and for a heroine who remains unforgettable.
Public domain
Willa Cather died in 1947: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text