Tillie Olsen

Dime una adivinanza

A collection of works, both fictional and non-fictional, gathered together here for the first time --

Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Works

I Stand Here Ironing

Yonnondio follows the heartbreaking path of the Holbrook family in the late 1920s and the Great Depression as they move from the coal mines of Wyoming to a tenant farm in western Nebraska, ending up finally on the kill floors of the slaughterhouses and in the wretched neighborhoods of the poor in Omaha, Nebraska. Mazie, the oldest daughter in the growing family of Jim and Anna Holbrook, tells the story of the family's desire for a better life – Anna's dream that her children be educated and Jim's wish for a life lived out in the open, away from the darkness and danger of the mines. At every turn in their journey, however, their dreams are frustrated, and the family is jeopardized by cruel and indifferent systems.

From the Thirties

Yonnondio

Special 25th anniversary edition of the landmark survey that revolutionized the view of literary history.

Silences

Leo Tolstoy

Contrasting stories on the ultimate questions: Olsen circles in psychological time; Tolstoy is linear, realistic.

The Riddle of Life and Death

"In Silences, Tillie Olsen ... confronts ... the crucial relationship between circumstances--class, color, sex, the times and climate into which one is born--and the creation of written literature. These essays ... explore the problems of literary 'silences' in the careers of both the acknowledged great and those who ceased to write ... Tillie Olsen focuses on the silences that are most immediate to her own experience: how a negative literary climate, childbearing and rearing shape a woman's writing life"--Cover.

Contains an authoritative text of the story, along with a chronology, critical essays, and a bibliography.

Tell Me a Riddle

A century after her birth, Tillie Olsen’s writing is as relevant as when it first appeared; indeed, the clarity and passion of her vision and style have, if anything, become even more striking over time. Collected here for the first time are several of Olsen’s nonfiction pieces about the 1930s, early journalism pieces, and short fiction, including the four beautifully crafted, highly celebrated stories originally published as Tell Me a Riddle: “I Stand Here Ironing,” “Hey Sailor, What Ship?,” “O Yes,” and “Tell Me a Riddle.” Also included, for the first time since it appeared in the 1971 Best American Short Stories, is “Requa I.” In these stories, as in all of her work, Olsen set a new standard for the treatment of women and the poor and for the depiction of their lives and circumstances. In her hands, the hard truths about motherhood and marriage, domestic life, labor, and political conviction found expression in language of such poetic intensity and depth that its influence continues to be felt today. An introduction by Olsen’s granddaughter, the poet Rebekah Edwards, and a foreword by her daughter Laurie Olsen provide a personal and generational context for the author’s work.

Tillie Olsen

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