Anzia Yezierska's 'Bread Givers' Reissued After Rediscovery, Selling 400,000 Copies

Anzia Yezierska, a Jewish immigrant author dubbed 'Queen of the Ghetto' by a New York newspaper in the 1920s, documented the struggles of immigrant women with a style she called 'immigrant English.' Her family arrived in New York from Poland in 1890. Defying her father Bernard's expectations, she left home as a teenager, lived at the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls, and graduated from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1904. After a brief marriage to Arnold Levitas ended in 1916, she dedicated herself to writing. Her 1919 story 'The Fat of the Land' was ranked top in Edward J. O'Brien's 'Best Short Stories' anthology. Her 1920 collection 'Hungry Hearts' attracted Hollywood; Samuel Goldwyn bought film rights for $10,000 in 1921, and a movie directed by E. Mason Hopper was filmed on New York's Lower East Side in 1922. Her 1925 novel 'Bread Givers,' published by Doubleday, was hailed by the New York Times. Her fame waned after the 1929 stock market crash. In the late 1960s, historian Alice Kessler-Harris rediscovered Yezierska's work. Kessler-Harris, later a professor at Columbia University, advocated for republication, leading Persea Books to reissue 'Bread Givers' in 1975. Since then, the novel has sold over 400,000 copies. Yezierska died in 1970 in a California nursing home after a stroke. Her 1950 autobiography 'Red Ribbon on a White Horse' had a foreword by W.H. Auden.