John Yorke explores themes of loss, longing and the founding of America, in Willa Cather’s innovative novel, My Ántonia. A milestone in American literature, the novel’s heroine is - unusually for the time - a Czech immigrant, Ántonia Shimerda, seen through the eyes of her childhood friend, lawyer Jim Burden. Ántonia survives poverty, tragedy and betrayal through her hard work, energy and optimism.

The novel shows ‘the other side of the rug, the pattern that is not supposed to count in a story. There is no love affair, no courtship, no marriage, no broken heart, no struggle for success’. Deceptively easy to read, Cather communicates feeling in a strikingly modern, cinematic way, with a mastery of visual storytelling, using language to capture the soul of a nation.

With contributions from Melissa Homestead, Professor of English and Director of the Cather Project at the University of Lincoln-Nebraska.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain, from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters, now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for Radio 4.

Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery