O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. Alexandra Bergson, one of the great heroines of American literature, comes from a family of Swedish settlers at the turn of the twentieth century. When their father dies young, exhausted by the failure of his attempts at agriculture, it is left to the visionary Alexandra to guide the family to prosperity and safeguard the fortune of her brothers. Strong-willed and fiercely independent, she succeeds against all odds, but only at the cost of her own fulfillment as a woman. Central to the novel’s action is the Nebraskan landscape it describes, by turns unyielding and fruitful, bitter and ecstatic.