Willa Cather Knihy

Román české ženy mezi evropskými přistěhovalci v Americe, který v smíšeném národnostním prostředí vyzdvihuje povahové rysy pro českou ženu typické, vášnivou lásku k životu, houževnatost, dobrotu, důvěřivost a citlivé srdce. Vyprávěn v prvé osobě obdivným pohledem Američana, byl míněn jako oslava české ženy k obnovení české samostatnosti v r. 1918. Jeho autorkou je americká spisovatelka irského původu, která prožila mládí mezi evropskými přistěhovalci v Nebrasce a sblížila se zejména s rodinami skandinávskými a českými.

Na příběhu jedné rodiny sledujeme přerod společnosti pionýrských osadníků do počínajícího nelítostného kapitalismu.

Lucy Gayheartová, jejíž matka zemřela, když jí bylo šest, a ona byla potom většinou vychovávána svojí sestrou Paulinou, patří k místní mládeži. Potom odjíždí do Chicaga na studium hudby.

Nejznámější román americké autorky z roku 1927 se odehrává v polovině minulého století v oblasti Nového Mexika, kam přijíždí nový vikář Jean Latour, a trvá mu celý rok, než se dostane na své působiště. Důležitou roli v díle hraje krajina, pustá a liduprázdná, kterou spisovatelka líčí s důvěrnou znalostí, a dále chudí Mexičané, Indiáni a mestici, kteří jí přizpůsobují svůj život.

Povídka popisuje závěr života nebraského farmáře původem z Čech. Oslavuje postoje a hodnoty imigrantů na americké půdě.

Recognized for her vivid portrayals of frontier life, Willa Sibert Cather's works explore the challenges and triumphs of life on the Great Plains. Her notable novels, including O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark, reflect her Nebraska roots and deep connection to the landscape. Cather's literary achievements were honored with the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours, a poignant narrative set against the backdrop of World War I. Her journey from Nebraska to New York shaped her unique perspective as an author.

In this haunting novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of My Ántonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop performs a series of crystalline variations on the themes that preoccupy her greatest fiction: the impermanence of innocence, the opposition between prairie and city, provincial American values and world culture, and the grandeur, elation, and heartache that await a gifted young woman who leaves her small Nebraska town to pursue a life in art. At the age of eighteen, Lucy Gayheart heads for Chicago to study music. She is beautiful and impressionable and ardent, and these qualities attract the attention of Clement Sebastian, an aging but charismatic singer who exercises all the tragic, sinister fascination of a man who has renounced life only to turn back to seize it one last time. Out of their doomed love affair-and Lucy's fatal estrangement from her origins-Willa Cather creates a novel that is as achingly lovely as a Schubert sonata.

My Mortal Enemy is the eighth novel by American author Willa Cather. It was first published in1926. Willa Cather's protagonist in My Mortal Enemy is Myra Henshawe, who as a young woman gave up a fortune to marry for love-a boldly romantic gesture that became a legend in her family. But this worldly, sarcastic, and perhaps even wicked woman may have been made for something greater than love.

My Antonia' is one man's attempt to commit to paper the beautiful, wild eyed immigrant girl who has haunted him all his life. For Jim Burden, Antonia Shimerdas symbolises all the extraordinary contradicitions of the American West: Its harshness, its untamed beauty, its blazing summers and bitter winters, its endless possibilities and vast unconquerable horizons. This is his attempt to immortalise her, to posses her as he never could in life. Widely regarded as Willa Carter's finest novel, My Antonia, is a moving and powerful description of love and a timeless portrait of a land and its people.

The novel follows a year in the lives of Cecile Auclair and her father Euclide, French colonists in Quebec, beginning in 1697. Euclide, a physician and apothecary, reflects on the last ship returning to France while managing the household after his wife's death, with Cecile taking on domestic duties. The story unfolds through character-driven narratives rather than a central plot. As winter approaches, Euclide attends to Reverend Mother Juschereau, while Cecile shows kindness to Jacques, the son of a troubled woman, by seeking shoes for him from Governor Frontenac. The young Bishop Saint-Vallier visits the Auclair shop, and Euclide expresses his disapproval of the bishop's extravagant lifestyle and decisions. In June, fur-trader Pierre Charron shares tales with the Auclairs and accompanies Cecile on a visit to friends. When five ships arrive from France, a celebration ensues, and Cecile receives gifts from her aunts. Although scheduled to return to France, she hesitates, worried about Jacques's well-being. Meanwhile, the Count, realizing he won't be recalled to France, frees Euclide from service, but Euclide opts to stay. The Count, on his deathbed, gifts a bowl of glass fruit to Cecile, and after his passing, the two bishops reconcile their differences.

From one of the most highly acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century: a truly remarkable book" (The New York Times), an epic story of a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert. With a new introduction by Claire Messud. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

This collection showcases Willa Cather's poetic experimentation across various styles and themes, reflecting her personal experiences. Spanning from 1892 to 1933, the poems reveal the depth of her literary talent, complementing her renowned work as a novelist.

Marian Forrester is the symbolic flower of the Old American West. She draws her strength from that solid foundation, bringing delight and beauty to her elderly husband, to the small town of Sweet Water where they live, to the prairie land itself, and to the young narrator of her story, Neil Herbert. All are bewitched by her brilliance and grace, and all are ultimately betrayed. For Marian longs for "life on any terms," and in fulfilling herself, she loses all she loved and all who loved her. This, Willa Cather's most perfect novel, is not only a portrait of a troubling beauty, but also a haunting evocation of a noble age slipping irrevocably into the past.

The story explores Professor Godfrey St. Peter's struggle with change and nostalgia as he grapples with his dissatisfaction in life. Reluctantly moving to a new house, he clings to his past by maintaining his old study. A near-death experience from a gas leak serves as a catalyst for self-reflection, prompting him to confront his fears and seek a healthier way to cope with his evolving reality. The narrative delves into themes of identity, loss, and the challenges of embracing change.

Sapphira Dodderidge, a Virginia lady of the 19th century, marries beneath her and becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, a beautiful slave. One of Cather's later works.

The Burglar’s Christmas was originally published near the beginning of Willa Cather’s writing career in 1896 under the pseudonym of Elizabeth L. Seymour. The story follows William Crawford on the cold streets of Chicago as he contemplates the multiple failures plaguing his life, including his time at college and careers in journalism, real estate, and performing. Distraught, he tries one more role: thief. Attempting to burgle a residence and caught in the act by the lady of the house, William must come to terms with the choices that led him to that moment. Cather provides a heartwarming short story of redemption and love at Christmas, a timely reminder that kindness is in everyone, just waiting to be uncovered.

The novel explores Claude Wheeler's internal struggle as he grapples with feelings of dissatisfaction and a sense of entrapment despite his comfortable upbringing in Nebraska. Set around the turn of the 20th century, it delves into themes of identity, societal expectations, and the search for meaning in life. Cather vividly portrays Wheeler's conflicts with his family's values and his quest for purpose, ultimately leading him to question the path laid out for him.

Alexander’s Bridge, Willa Cather’s first novel, is a taut psychological drama about the fragility of human connections. Published in 1912, just a year before O Pioneers! made Cather’s name, it features high society on an international stage rather than the immigrant prairie characters she later became known for. The successful and glamorous life of Bartley Alexander, a world-renowned engineer and bridge builder, begins to unravel when he encounters a former lover in London. As he shuttles among his wife in Boston, his old flame in London, and a massive bridge he is building in Canada, Alexander finds himself increasingly tormented. But the threatened collapse of his marriage presages a more fatal catastrophe, one he will risk his life to try to prevent.

Willa Cather is celebrated for her vivid depictions of settlers and frontier life in the American plains. Born in Virginia in 1873 and later residing in New York City, her works reflect a deep understanding of the challenges and triumphs faced by those who shaped the American landscape. Cather's storytelling captures the essence of resilience and the human spirit against the backdrop of the vast, often harsh, plains. Her literary contributions have solidified her status as a significant figure in American literature.

Willa Cather's collection presents a vivid portrayal of early 20th-century American life, exploring themes of identity, relationships, and the changing landscapes of the Midwest. Set against diverse backdrops, from vast plains to small towns, each narrative features ordinary characters facing extraordinary events. Cather's evocative prose captures the essence of love, loss, and the quest for meaning, reflecting the complexities of human emotions and the broader cultural context. This work showcases her literary skill and deep appreciation for the American experience.

One of America’s greatest women writers, Willa Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel—the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America’s Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cases, defeated them, Cather’s novel is a uniquely American epic. Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father’s farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather’s great heroines—all of them women of strong will and an even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather’s books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush, and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: “The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.” Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.

A story of a young woman's awakening as an artist and her struggle to escape the constraints of a small town in Colorado.

Alexandra, daughter of a Swedish immigrant farmer in Nebraska, inherits the family farm and finds love with an old friend.

A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl. Includes background information, a chronology of the author's life, explanatory notes, critical analyses, and other reference material.

Es gibt etwas Episches - und fast Mythisches - an diesem spärlich schönen Roman von Willa Cather, obwohl die Geschichte, die er erzählt, die eines einzelnen menschlichen Lebens ist, das einfach in der Stille der Wüste gelebt wird. Im Jahr 1851 kommt Pater Jean Marie Latour als apostolischer Vikars nach New Mexico. Was er findet, ist ein weites Gebiet aus roten Hügeln und gewundenen Bächen, amerikanisch im Gesetz, aber mexikanisch und indianisch in Brauch und Glauben. In den fast vierzig Jahren, die folgen, verbreitet Latour seinen Glauben auf die einzige Weise, die er kennt - sanft, obwohl er sich mit einer unerbittlichen Landschaft, vernachlässigten und manchmal offen rebellischen Priestern und seiner eigenen Einsamkeit auseinandersetzen muss. In einem dieser Ereignisse gibt Cather uns eine unauslöschliche Vision des Lebens, das sich an einem Ort entfaltet, an dem die Zeit selbst wie suspendiert scheint.

Willa Cather (1873-1947) a déjà solidement établi sa réputation de grand écrivain américain avec, entre autres romans, Mon Antonia et Pionniers ! lorsque, au cours de l’un de ses voyages en France, en 1930, elle rencontre, dans un hôtel d’Aix-les-Bains, une fascinante vieille dame qui n’est autre que Caroline Grout, la nièce de Gustave Flaubert. La petite Caroline, dont la mère est morte en couches, a été élevée par son fameux oncle dont elle est l’exécutrice testamentaire. La Nièce de Flaubert dresse le portrait d’une femme surprenante, lien vivant entre un vingtième siècle déjà éprouvé par la guerre et l’âge d’or de la littérature française, dont Flaubert est l’un des plus grands représentants. Ce texte est avant tout un éloge ardent de la littérature et de la lecture, non comme passe-temps mais comme raison de vivre.

Die neu entdeckten Erzählungen einer der großen Stilistinnen der amerikanischen Literatur Mit so einfach erscheinenden Worten und dem klaren Rhythmus ihrer Sätze leuchtet Willa Cather das Innenleben ihrer Figuren aus und erweckt deren Umfeld zum Leben: Ob sechs Schulfreunde in einer Sommernacht auf einer Sandbank im Fluss von bevorstehenden Abenteuern träumen, Nelly Deane mit ungestümer Lebenslust nach den Sternen greift, der Lehrling Paul mit erschlichenem Geld in einem New Yorker Hotel die weite Welt schnuppert oder die alte Mrs. Harris versucht, ihrer Enkelin einen großen Zukunftswunsch zu erfüllen – wie nebenbei scheinen bei Cather die großen Fragen unserer Existenz auf. Und sie führt uns bestechend klar vor Augen, wie Gesellschaft und Landschaft bestimmen, wer wir sind. Bis wir uns von den Fesseln befreien. Größtenteils zum ersten Mal übersetzt von Agnes Krup, die in ihrem Nachwort zeigt, wie Leben und Werk der Autorin zusammengehören.