The Role of American Lanscape in Jane Smiley’s Novel “ A Thousand Acres “
The Role of American Lanscape in Jane Smiley’s Novel “ A Thousand Acres “

Summary/Abstract: Jane Smiley (b. 1949) is a famous American novelist, essayist and short story writer. According to Cathy Davidson and Linda Martin, her writings explore a variety of themes: The Greenlanders (1988), a historical saga set in fourteenth century Scandinavia; Barn Blind (1980), a pastoral novel set during summer in Midwest; Duplicate Keys (1984), a mystery (Davidson, Martin, 1995:819). Such variation is, as Michael Chabon observes, a very challenging or even a risky step of a writer because he or she may “get punished for it by critics and even by readers who like to read the same thing over and over again” (in Wroe, 2004:1). However, Jane Smiley manages to escape the risks and stays a productive and popular author, able to engage the reader in all of her diverse themes and genres. Nicholas Wroe rightly states that Smiley is a professional in creative writing, the discipline she had taught at Iowa State University from 1981 to 1996 (Wroe, 2004:1).

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