Anzia Yezierska

Anzia Yezierska was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States as a child. She and her parents settled in the immigrant community of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Yezierska mined her childhood for her writing, which often explored the immigrant experience and issues of assimilation. Her first collection of short stories was published as Hungry Hearts in 1920. Samuel Goldwyn purchased the film rights and brought Yezierska to Hollywood to work on the screenplay, which threaded together several short stories into a unified narrative. The silent film adaptation was filmed on location on the Lower East Side.

Paramount produced an adaptation of her first novel in 1925.