Wolfsonian Museum Book Club presents Yonnondio By Tillie Olsen (1974)

May 4, 2012. 7:00 p.m.

Yonnondio follows the struggles of the growing family of Jim and Anna Holbrook in the late 1920s and the Great Depression as they move from the coal mines of Wyoming to a tenant farm in western Nebraska. It is mostly through the eyes of Maizie Holbrook, the young protagonist, that we learn 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. Written when Olsen was 19 years old, the unfinished manuscript was discovered and published as it was originally written in the 1930s.

Wolfsonian Museum – FIU
1001 Washington Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.531.1001
www.wolfsonian.org

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