Willa Cather

Born on December 7, 1873, Willa Cather was an American writer whose work illuminated the lives of settlers on the prairies during the homesteading era of the late nineteenth century.

• Although she is identified with Nebraska, Cather was born in Virginia. Her family moved to Nebraska when she was nine, and the new environment and people she met made an indelible impression on her.
• Cather depicted the hard work and challenges faced by Nebraska settlers struggling to survive the westward journey and prairie existence in such novels as O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918).
• Cather also explored other settings and periods in her novels. She won a Pulitzer Prize for 1922's One of Ours, inspired in part by a cousin's death while fighting in World War I (WWI); Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), set in the desert southwest, often appears on lists of best modern literature.
• By the time of her death in 1947, Cather had written 12 novels, 6 collections of short fiction, 2 editions of a book of poetry, and numerous other works of nonfiction, collected journalism, speeches, and letters.
• The statue depicts Cather at around age 40, at the time when she began focusing on writing novels, having lived through the flu pandemic and WWI. She stands on the Nebraska prairie, drawing inspiration from the landscape during a “field research“ session.