How I Found America: Collected Stories [Paperback]

Anzia Yezierska (Author), Vivian Gornick (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

An indispensable volume of immigrant literature.

Individually, each of these 27 stories is authentic and immediate, as memorable as family history passed from one generation to the next; taken together, they comprise a vivid, enduring portrait of the struggles of immigrant Jews—particularly women—on New York's Lower East Side.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Groping, impassioned, incandescent, Yezierska's nakedly honest stories of Jewish immigrants on New York City's Lower East Side have universal appeal. Their insistent theme is the possibility for regeneration of self in America. Herself an emigrant from the Russian-held Poland around 1890, Yezierska (1880?-1970) created sympathetic characters nearly crushed by hunger, poverty, the drudgery of sweatshops, cruel bosses, evictions, loneliness, disillusionment. Yet her people, full of fierce longings, resolve to remake their lives. Her women are torn between a desire for "home, husband, babies . . . a breadgiver for life" and the urge to carve out an independent identity. This volume includes the two story collections published in Yezierska's lifetime, plus seven additional pieces. Of special interest are the autobiographical sketches in which Yezierska frankly discusses her climb from poverty to sudden wealth, her brief success in Hollywood, followed by neglect, silence, a slide back into poverty, and old age.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The Jewish immigrant experience in all its joy and pain has been captured beautifully in Yezierska's work. Her stories and novels, written from the 1920s to the 1960s, immortalized the immigrant Jews of the Lower East Side of New York, particularly the women. This collection of 27 stories--virtually all her short fiction--includes the two collections published during her lifetime, Hungry Hearts and Children of Loneliness. In "Wings," a recent Russian immigrant who works as a janitor of a building on the Lower East Side fruitlessly pins her hopes on a gentleman tenant. In "My Own People." Yezierska, speaking in the third person, writes, "Would she ever become articulate enough to express beautifully what she saw and felt?" After all, her experiences were the stifling sweatshop, a meager night-school education, and a blinding desire to express herself. These are stories of old age as well, written in the 1960s when Yezierska's reputation had waned and she was living in poverty again. Her stories capture the passionate struggle of the human spirit.
- Molly Abramowitz, Silver Springs, Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Persea (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892552980
• ISBN-13: 978-0892552986
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #355,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Jewish American

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very THRILLING Book, June 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: How I Found America: Collected Stories (Paperback)

This book was one of the many fine works of literature we needed for 11th grade at my school. While reading it I was engrossed and couldn't put it down. A really, really good book.