Bøker av Anzia Yezierska

"First published in the United States of America by Doubleday & Co., 1925"--Title page verso.

Fanya, a young Polish Jew, living and working on the Lower East Side, attends a lecture by a famous educator, Henry Scott, that seems meant specifically for her.  Scott calls America "the meeting ground of all the nations of the world" and exhorts Americans to "blaze a trail to a future where people would be judged not by membership in a group  . . . but as individuals on their own merits."   On an impulse, Fanya goes to Scott's university office and boldly asks him to read the autobiography she has written. After a highly charged exchange, the rational, older, American professor is won over by the young, passionate, Jewish immigrant. She is his fascination; he is her "symbol of all she could never be." Scott becomes her mentor, leading Fanya to success as an author.  He also expresses romantic interest in her, but ultimately rebuffs her socially. Although she is crushed, instead of returning to the ghetto to live among "her own people," as so many before her have done, Fanya chooses to advance further into America. She buys a house in a quiet New England village, where, eventually, another newcomer becomes an unexpected soul mate-and she prepares to make a home.This moving portrait of a vibrant and talented immigrant woman is based on the author's true relationship with John Dewey, the important and famous educator who was her most significant influence. It depicts the workings of American society during the 1930s, especially between the privileged class and immigrants who were striving for a better life. It is an early and optimistic story of Jewish assimilation, and grapples with issues still faced by immigrants today.The comprehensive introduction by Dr. Catherine Rottenberg, who rescued the novel from obscurity, describes the novel's significance, placing it in the context of Yezierska's work and life, as well as within the Jewish American literary tradition.

Bread Givers is a coming of age story set in the 1920s. As the novel begins Sara Smolinsky is a 10-year-old girl whose family has immigrated to New York City from Poland. Her father is an Orthodox rabbi who feels that it is up to his four daughters and his wife to support him as he studies the Torah.

The target of intense critical comment when it was first published in 1927, Arrogant Beggars scathing attack on charity-run boardinghouses remains one of Anzia Yezierskas most devastating works of social criticism.

Salome of the Tenements shocked many critics and writers when first published in 1923, but its author was immediately hailed as a major new talent. A love story of a working-class Salome and her "highborn" John the Baptist, the novel is based on the real-life story of Jewish immigrant Rose Pastor's fairytale romance with the millionaire socialist Graham Stokes. It also reflects Yezierska's own aborted romance with the famous educator John Dewey. Yezierska's passionate but cynical novel poses oppositions such as cultural type/stereotype, passion/reason, and ethnic identity/assimilation, and it resonates powerfully to the contemporary reader.