My Ántonia

A study of one of the most beloved and strong heroines in the history of American literature.



Part of the great western migration of the late 1800s, Ántonia Shimerda and her Bohemian family settle in Nebraska to start a new life on the Great Plains. Jim Burden, a child just a couple of years older than Ántonia, travels the same route from the east and becomes, with his grandparents, the Shimerdas’ nearest neighbor. Jim becomes Ántonia’s tutor and good friend, and ultimately he chooses to write down her story. Here is a grounded portrait of one woman’s life on the desolate American prairie as the 19th century turns to the 20th and a sweeping take on what it can mean to be American through hardship.