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 middle-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.