Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
Author of Their Eyes Were Watching God
About the Author
Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1901 in Eatonville, Fla. She left home at the age of 17, finished high school in Baltimore, and went on to study at Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University before becoming one of the most prolific writers in the Harlem Renaissance. Her works show more included novels, essays, plays, and studies in folklore and anthropology. Her most productive years were the 1930s and early 1940s. It was during those years that she wrote her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road, worked with the Federal Writers Project in Florida, received a Guggenheim fellowship, and wrote four novels. She is most remembered for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. In 2018, her previously unpublished work, Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, was published. She died penniless and in obscurity in 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1973, her grave was rediscovered and marked and her novels and autobiography have since been reprinted. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Works by Zora Neale Hurston
I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... and Then Again When I Am Lookin Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (1979) 422 copies
A Teacher's Guide to Their Eyes Were Watching God: Common-Core Aligned Teacher Materials and a Sample Chapter (2014) 8 copies
An Introduction to Their Eyes Were Watching God (The Big Read) National Endowment For The Arts (2008) 6 copies
Polk County: A Comedy of Negro Life on a Sawmill Camp with Authentic Negro Music in Three Acts 3 copies
Sweat - A Short Story;Including the Introductory Essay 'A Brief History of the Harlem Renaissance' (2022) 2 copies
The Complete Stories by Hurston, Zora Neale. (Harper Perennial Modern Classics,2008) [Paperback] 2 copies
The "Pet Negro" system 1 copy
Drenched in Light 1 copy
Bahamas 1 copy
The Bone Contention 1 copy
The Fiery Chariot 1 copy
Forty Yards 1 copy
Hurston, Zora Neal Archive 1 copy
Lawing and Jawing 1 copy
Woofing 1 copy
Fast and Furious 1 copy
The Sermon in the Valley 1 copy
The Complete Stories 1 copy
Jook 1 copy
Railroad Camp 1 copy
Cock Robin 1 copy
The House That Jack Built 1 copy
“The Eatonville Anthology” 1 copy
Hurston Zora Neale 1 copy
Their Eyes Are Watching God 1 copy
Lenox Avenue 1 copy
Spears: A Play in Two Acts 1 copy
Cold Keener: A Review 1 copy
Filling Station 1 copy
Heaven 1 copy
Mr. Frog 1 copy
Associated Works
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 925 copies
The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1899-1967: The Classic Anthology (1967) — Contributor — 176 copies
Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient… (1992) — Contributor — 160 copies
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest (2013) — Contributor — 147 copies
Writing Women's Lives: An Anthology of Autobiographical Narratives by Twentieth-Century American Women Writers (1994) — Contributor — 121 copies
Calling the Wind: Twentieth Century African-American Short Stories (1992) — Contributor — 100 copies
Writing New York: A Literary Anthology (Expanded 10th-Anniversary Edition) (2008) — Contributor — 93 copies
The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present (2020) — Contributor — 83 copies
Grand Mothers: Poems, Reminiscences, and Short Stories About the Keepers of Our Traditions (1994) — Contributor — 78 copies
Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power and Pleasure of Reading and Writing (2018) — Contributor — 76 copies
Bearing Witness: Selections from African-American Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1991) — Contributor — 69 copies
Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950 (Blacks in the Diaspora) (1989) — Contributor — 43 copies
Best of The Oxford American: Ten Years from the Southern Magazine of Good Writing {anthology} (2002) — Contributor — 43 copies
Women in the Trees: U.S. Women's Short Stories About Battering and Resistance, 1839-1994 (1996) — Contributor — 39 copies
Centers of the Self: Stories by Black American Women, from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (1994) — Contributor — 28 copies
Weird Women: Volume 2: 1840-1925: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers (2) (2021) — Contributor — 27 copies
The Unforgetting Heart: An Anthology of Short Stories by African American Women (1859-1993) (1993) — Contributor — 23 copies
The Roots of African American Drama: An Anthology of Early Plays, 1858-1938 (African American Life Series) (1990) — Contributor — 5 copies
Story in America, 1933-1934: Thirty-Four Selections from the American Issues of "Story," the Magazine Devoted Solely to… (1934) — Contributor — 3 copies
New World Journal #5 — Contributor — 1 copy
The Netzahualcoyotl News, Volume 1, Number 1 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Hurston, Zora Neale
- Legal name
- Hurston, Zora Neale Lee
- Other names
- HURSTON, Zora NEALE
HURSTON, Zora NEALE Lee
NEALE HURSTON, Zora
HURSTON, Zora - Birthdate
- 1891-01-07
- Date of death
- 1960-01-28
- Burial location
- Garden of Heavenly Rest Cemetery, Fort Pierce, Florida, USA
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Notasulga, Alabama, USA
- Place of death
- Fort Pierce, Florida, USA
- Places of residence
- Notasulga, Alabama, USA
Eatonville, Florida, USA
Westfield, New Jersey, USA
Fort Pierce, Florida, USA
New York, New York, USA
Eau Gallie, Florida, USA (show all 8)
Jamaica
Haiti - Education
- Morgan Academy (1918)
Howard University (1920)
Barnard College (BA|Anthropology|1927)
Columbia University - Occupations
- novelist
short-story writer
playwright
essayist
folklorist
teacher (show all 8)
maid
freelance writer - Relationships
- Hurston, Lucy (niece)
Boas, Franz (teacher)
Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan (friend) - Organizations
- American Folklore Society
American Anthropological Society
American Ethnological Society
Zeta Phi Beta
Bethune-Cookman University
Paramount Studios (writer) (show all 12)
Patrick Air Force Base (librarian)
Fort Pierce Chronicle
Lincoln Park Academy (teacher)
Library of Congress (librarian)
North Carolina Central University (professor)
WPA - Awards and honors
- Zeta Phi Beta
Guggenheim Fellowship (1937)
Bethune-Cookman College Award for Education and Human Relations (1956)
Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities - Agent
- Ann Watkins
Jean Parker Waterbury - Short biography
- See Hurston's biography in the online Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Members
Discussions
February Group Read: Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2015 Category Challenge (March 2015)
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Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 83
- Also by
- 73
- Members
- 29,246
- Popularity
- #685
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 526
- ISBNs
- 318
- Languages
- 11
- Favorited
- 94
(Available in Print: (1937), 10/24/2000; PUBLISHER: Amistad; First Hardcover Edition; ISBN: 978-0060199494; PAGES: 256; Unabridged.)
(Available as Digital)
*This edition-Audio: COPYRIGHT: 10/31/2005; ISBN: 9780060842765; PUBLISHER: Harper Audio; DURATION: 06:44:30; PARTS: 7; Unabridged; FILE SIZE: 194251 KB
TV FILM ADAPTAION: GENRE: Drama; BASED ON: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; WRITTEN BY: Suzan-Lori Parks, Misan Sagay, Bobby Smith Jr.; DIRECTED BY: Darnell Martin;
PRESENTED BY: Oprah Winfrey; STARRING: Halle Berry, Ruben Santiago-Hudson; Michael Ealy; MUSIC BY: Terence Blanchard; COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United States;
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: English; EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Oprah Winfrey, Kate Forte; PRODUCER: Matthew Carlisle; CINAMAPHOTOGRAPHY: Checco Varese; EDITOR: Peter C. Frank; RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes; PRODUCTION COMPANY: Harpo Films; DISTRIBUTOR Touchstone
SERIES:
No
MAJOR CHARACTERS:
(Not comprehensive. I was listening rather than reading, so may not have spelled names correctly)
Janie Crawford – Protagonist
Pheoby – Janie’s friend
Nanny – Janie’s grandmother
Johnny Taylor - Janie’s neighbor
Logan Killicks – Nanny’s choice for Janie’s suitor
Jody (Joe) Starks – Janie’s love interest
Vergible Woods (Tea Cake) – Janie’s love interest
Mrs. Turner – Janie’s neighbor
Motorboat – Teacake’s friend
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I entered this book on my list of ‘want to reads” after reading “The Paris Library” where it was mentioned multiple times, and understandably; philosophical and poetic, it’s a great story.
AUTHOR:
Zora Neale Hurston – “(January 7, 1891[1]: 17 [2]: 5 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo.[3] The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.” __Wikipedia
NARRATOR:
Ruby Dee: “Ruby Dee (October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist.[1] She originated the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun (1961). Her other notable film roles include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and Do the Right Thing (1989).” __Wikipedia
Ruby's narration was fabulous!
GENRE:
Classic Literature; Fiction; African American Fiction; Harlem Renaissance; Women’s Literature;
LOCATIONS:
Soth Florida; Eatonville, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Belle Glade (Muck City), Florida; Everglades
TIME FRAME:
Early 20th Century
SUBJECTS:
1928 Okeechobee hurricane; Gender roles; Family relations; Love; Romance; Survival; Marriage; African American; Post American Civil War; Post-Slavery Florida; Trial; Beauty; Liberation; Eye dialect
DEDICATION:
"To Henry Allen Moe"
SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgement.
The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgement.
Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without masters; walking altogether like harmony in a song.
'What she doin' coming back here in dem overhalls? Can't she fin no dress to put on?--Where's dat blue satin dress she left here in?--Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her?--What dat ole forty year ole 'oman doin' wid her hair swingin' down her back lak some young gal?--Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid?--Though she was goint to marry?--Where he left her?--What he done wid all her money?--Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain't even got no hairs--why she don't stay in her class?--"
RATING: 4 stars.
STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
5-16-2022 to 5-20-2022
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