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Zora Neale Hurston

Biography

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist and anthropologist. An author of four novels (JONAH'S GOURD VINE, 1934; THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, 1937; MOSES, MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, 1939; and SERAPH ON THE SUWANEE, 1948); two books of folklore (MULES AND MEN, 1935, and TELL MY HORSE, 1938); an autobiography (DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD, 1942); and over 50 short stories, essays and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College and Columbia University, and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1927. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida. She died in Fort Pierce, in 1960. In 1973, Alice Walker had a headstone placed at her gravesite with this epitaph: “Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South.”

Zora Neale Hurston

Books by Zora Neale Hurston

written by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Deborah G. Plant - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In the 1950s, as a continuation of MOSES, MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament but a forerunner of Christ --- a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea. Portraying Herod within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, Hurston’s unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling and misunderstood leader fully into focus. Scholar-Editor Deborah Plant’s "Commentary: A Story Finally Told" assesses Hurston’s pioneering work and underscores Hurston’s perspective that the first century has much to teach us, and the lens through which to view this dramatic and stirring era is the life and times of Herod the Great.

by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Genevieve West - Essays, Nonfiction

YOU DON'T KNOW US NEGROES is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles that enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people’s inner lives and culture rather than destroying it.

by Zora Neale Hurston - Fiction, Short Stories

In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston --- the sole black student at the college --- was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.” During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives.

by Zora Neale Hurston - Fiction

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.