Anzia Yezierska (October 29, 1880 – November 20, 1970) was an American novelist born in Mały Płock, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire.

She emigrated as a child with her parents to the United States and lived in the immigrant neighborhood of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Her family emigrated to America around 1893, following in the footsteps of her eldest brother, who had arrived in the States six years prior.

Anzia Yezierska's parents encouraged her brothers to pursue higher education but believed she and her sisters had to support their husbands and families.

Overwhelmed with the chores and responsibilities of raising her daughter, she gave up her maternal rights and transferred them to Levitas.

Yezierska wrote about the struggles of Jewish and later Puerto Rican immigrants in New York's Lower East Side.

Her works feature elements of realism with attention to detail; she often has characters express themselves in Yiddish-English dialect.

Yezierska's early fiction was eventually collected by publisher Houghton Mifflin and released as a book titled Hungry Hearts in 1920.

She exposes the hypocrisy of the charitably run Hellman Home for Working Girls after fleeing from the poverty of the Lower East Side.

In 1929–1930 Yezierska received a Zona Gale fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, which gave her a financial stipend.

[9] As portrayed in the book, she identified as an immigrant and never felt truly American, believing native-born people had an easier time.

The success of Anzia Yezierska's early short stories led to a brief, but significant, relationship between the author and Hollywood.

Movie producer Samuel Goldwyn bought the rights to Yezierska's collection Hungry Hearts.

[1] The silent film of the same title (1922) was shot on location at New York's Lower East Side with Helen Ferguson, E. Alyn Warren, and Bryant Washburn.

Recognizing the popularity of Yezierska's stories, Goldwyn gave the author a $100,000 contract to write screenplays.