Tell Me a Riddle

ONE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'S MOST GIFTED AMERICAN WRITERS 'Tillie Olsen's is a unique voice. Few writers have gained such . . . reverence' MARGARET ATWOOD 'Almost unbearable in its harsh poetry and bitter fidelity to lives that are now forgotten' ALICE WALKER 'There's no diminishing its fierce bloody-and-literal-mindedness' KIRKUS REVIEWS Tillie Olsen carved a permanent place in American literature on the strength of a single book, Tell Me a Riddle in 1962. This collection was widely hailed as a work of genius, in which the voices of ordinary Americans, black and white, male and female, were given their own rhythms and forms of expression. Yonnondio , Olsen's only novel, was begun during the depression and completed in 1974. It tells the story of the Hollbrooks, an itinerant working-class family in America during the thirties. Brutalised by poverty, they struggle to find a space to breathe, to dream and to create a bettter life for their children. Told in compelling, haunting prose, it is a profound and timeless story of the human will to survive.