About The Author American author Willa Cather (1873 - 1947) was raised in Virginia and Nebraska and wrote eloquently about life on the Great Plains, including My �ntonia (1918), considered her masterpiece. In 1923 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, set during WWI. O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish-American immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century.