The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. . . . The land belongs to the future . . . that's the way it seems to me. . . . I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it -- for a little while. -- Willa Cather, O Pioneers Willa Cather -- born in Back Creek, Virginia, in 1873 -- was nine when she and her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. She grew up on the plains -- and the plains grew into her as she did. This 1913 novel -- the story of an immigrant family's struggle to save their Nebraska farm -- grew out of her, and, of course, through her: there's a reason that this -- Cather's second novel -- is the famous book it has become. Cather attended the University of Nebraska, and worked six years on the editorial staff at McClure's Magazine in New York City; she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours.