Tillie Olsen

Tillie Olsen was one of six children born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents in Omaha, Nebraska. Olsen grew up in relative poverty and, although she was a voracious reader, her formal education ended when she left high school at age 16. Upon joining the Young Communist League in 1930, Olsen became deeply involved in communist activism and was noted throughout her life for her wide-ranging advocacy on behalf of women and the working class. Olsen published political poems and articles as a young woman, but her writing career slowed for many years due to the pressures of raising four daughters and earning a living. Olsen resumed publishing in her forties to wide acclaim, most notably with the four stories collected in Tell Me a Riddle, all of which were anthologized in the prestigious Best American Short Stories series. Following this success, Olsen was awarded numerous fellowships and honorary degrees and participated in the founding of The Feminist Press in 1970. Despite her relatively small body of published work, by the time of her death in 2007, Olsen was regarded as an instrumental figure in the evolution of feminist literature and activism.