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Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)

Author of Their Eyes Were Watching God

83+ Works 28,906 Members 532 Reviews 94 Favorited

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 In 2018, her previously unpublished work, Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, was published.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

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) 18,979 copies
Mules and Men (1935) 1,083 copies
The Complete Stories (1995) 464 copies
Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939) 437 copies
Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934) 421 copies
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948) 320 copies
The Sanctified Church (1981) 120 copies
Lies and Other Tall Tales (2005) 94 copies
Magnolia Flower (2022) 47 copies
The Six Fools (2005) 46 copies
The Three Witches (2006) 46 copies
The Making of Butterflies (2023) 18 copies
Poker! (2011) 12 copies
The Gilded Six-Bits (1933) 10 copies
Spunk [play] (2016) 3 copies
Stories (1996) 2 copies
Bahamas 1 copy
Forty Yards 1 copy
Woofing 1 copy
Jook 1 copy
Cock Robin 1 copy
Lenox Avenue 1 copy
Heaven 1 copy
Mr. Frog 1 copy

Associated Works

Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 915 copies
The Best American Essays of the Century (2000) — Contributor — 774 copies
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (1992) — Contributor — 743 copies
The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (1925) — Contributor — 433 copies
The Norton Book of Women's Lives (1993) — Contributor — 409 copies
Great Short Stories by American Women (1996) — Contributor — 408 copies
The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (1994) — Contributor — 404 copies
Writing New York: A Literary Anthology (1998) — Contributor — 275 copies
Russell Baker's Book of American Humor (1993) — Contributor — 207 copies
Modern American Memoirs (1995) — Contributor — 189 copies
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (2019) — Contributor — 166 copies
The Norton Book of Personal Essays (1997) — Contributor — 142 copies
The Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories (1991) — Contributor — 121 copies
Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White (1998) — Contributor — 118 copies
The Penguin Book of Women's Humour (1996) — Contributor — 117 copies
Downhome: An Anthology of Southern Women Writers (1995) — Contributor — 115 copies
Voices from the Harlem Renaissance (1976) — Contributor — 106 copies
Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women 1860-1960 (1987) — Contributor — 102 copies
The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1997) — Contributor — 98 copies
American Short Stories (1976) — Contributor, some editions — 95 copies
Rotten English: A Literary Anthology (2007) — Contributor — 75 copies
Women and Fiction: Volume 2 (1978) — Contributor — 73 copies
200 Years of Great American Short Stories (1975) — Contributor — 68 copies
Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (2006) — Contributor — 65 copies
The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology (1990) — Contributor — 64 copies
American Negro Short Stories (1966) — Contributor — 61 copies
Dark: Stories of Madness, Murder and the Supernatural (2000) — Contributor — 57 copies
The Vintage Book of American Women Writers (2011) — Contributor — 56 copies
The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem Renaissance Stories by Women (1993) — Contributor — 45 copies
Harlem's Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900-1950 (1996) — Contributor — 42 copies
Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance (1994) — Contributor — 40 copies
Southern Dogs and Their People (2000) — Contributor — 39 copies
The Virago Book of Wanderlust and Dreams (1998) — Contributor — 36 copies
Graphic Classics: African-American Classics (2011) — Contributor — 31 copies
Miami Noir: The Classics (2020) — Contributor — 24 copies
Almost Touching the Skies: Women's Coming of Age Stories (2000) — Contributor — 21 copies
The Story Pocket Book (1944) — Contributor — 13 copies
Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers (2018) — Director — 9 copies
The Saturday Evening Post Stories: 1950 (1950) — Contributor — 4 copies
The Word Lives On: A Treasury of Spiritual Fiction (1951) — Contributor — 4 copies
American Short Stories (Oxford Literature Resources) (1992) — Contributor — 2 copies
New World Journal, Vol. 1, No.4 (1979) — Contributor — 2 copies
New World Journal #5 — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

20th century (351) African American (1,151) African American literature (213) African Americans (170) African-American Literature (193) American (308) American literature (590) anthology (870) anthropology (138) autobiography (223) biography (279) classic (339) classics (397) essays (396) feminism (187) fiction (2,952) Florida (297) folklore (220) Harlem Renaissance (351) historical fiction (167) history (261) humor (123) Library of America (118) literature (726) memoir (272) non-fiction (653) novel (399) own (121) poetry (216) race (229) racism (107) read (312) short stories (654) slavery (160) to-read (1,718) unread (161) USA (154) women (442) women's studies (114) Zora Neale Hurston (144)

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February Group Read: Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2015 Category Challenge (March 2015)

Reviews

 
Flagged
PeteGreen | 1 other review | Mar 13, 2024 |
My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/DP2x7m7JLjg

Enjoy!
 
Flagged
booklover3258 | 342 other reviews | Feb 20, 2024 |
Back in 1927 and 1928, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston interviewed a man called Cudjo Lewis in Africatown, Alabama. The elderly Lewis, whose birth name was Kossola, had been captured in 1860 in his native Africa, in what is now Benin, and transported aboard the very last slave ship to Louisiana. In 1927, he held the tragic distinction of being the last known survivor of those "cargo" who had been aboard. Hurston visited Lewis and, over the course of several months, recorded his fascinating but heartbreaking history, but she was unable to find a publisher willing to include either Lewis' speech as transcribed or descriptions of Africans' own involvement in the slave trade, and the book's release was aborted — until 2018.

It feels awkward to express affection for a book whose roots lie in dehumanizing hardship and misery, but I truly treasure this book and what it contributes to history. Lewis had an amazing memory, and the reader will be astounded at the level of detail he was able to recall, well into his late eighties, about his early life and his native culture. Hurston's patience and kindness shine during times when Lewis didn't feel like opening up because he had to mend a fence or work in the garden, as well as on the days when the heaviness of his losses overwhelm him to the extent that he was unable to speak at all. The scenes in which they just sit around eating peaches are so heartwarmingly wholesome. This is a quick, insightful read, and once you recognize the patterns, Lewis' speech is not difficult at all to understand, so it's unfortunate that was a reason given for it not having been published nearly 100 years ago. Highly recommended.
… (more)
 
Flagged
ryner | 65 other reviews | Feb 17, 2024 |
Drawn from nearly four decades of her work, this anthology is a collection of both previously published and unpublished essays, criticisms, and articles by Zora Neale Hurston, the legendary Harlem Renaissance author, which unveils her evolving style as an archivist and writer. Edited and annotated by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Genevieve West, the essays in the collection are grouped by themes and cover a range of topics, including race and gender, politics, and folklore, from the Harlem Renaissance to the early years of the Civil Rights movement. This collection is fascinating both in what it reveals about Ms. Hurston – for example, her conventional views on gender and critique of feminism, her Republican politics, and her distaste for the NAACP and desegregated schools – and about the turbulent times she chronicled.… (more)
 
Flagged
bschweiger | 3 other reviews | Feb 4, 2024 |

Lists

1940s (1)
BLM (1)
1930s (1)
AP Lit (2)
Read (1)

Awards

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Associated Authors

Langston Hughes Contributor
Cudjo Lewis Interviewee
Dorothy Waring Contributor
Henry Louis Jr Gates Editor, Afterword, Introduction
Alice Walker Contributor, Editor, Foreword
Mary Helen Washington Foreword, Introduction
Henry Louis Gates Jr. Editor, Afterword
Carla Kaplan Editor, Introduction
Maya Angelou Introduction
Sieglinde Lemke Introduction
Tayari Jones Foreword
Genevieve West Introduction
Christopher Myers Illustrator
Christian Clayton Cover artist
Faith Ringgold Illustrator
Leonard Jenkins Illustrator
Ann Weinstock Cover designer
T. Charles Erickson Cover photographer
David Diaz Cover artist
Valerie Boyd Contributor
Ruby Dee Reader, Narrator
Holly Eley Introduction, Afterword
Scott McKowan Cover artist
Zadie Smith Introduction
Jerry Pinkney Illustrator
Robert E. Hemenway Contributor
Arnold Rampersad Foreword, Contributor
Robin Miles Narrator
Beatrice Sherman Contributor
Phil Strong Contributor
Miguel Covarrubias Illustrator
Franz Boas Preface
Darwin T. Turner Introduction
Ishmael Reed Introduction
Rita Dove Foreword
Gregg Kulick Cover designer
Ossie Davis Narrator
Arthur B. Spingarn Contributor
Lou Thompson Contributor
Carl Van Vechten Contributor

Statistics

Works
83
Also by
73
Members
28,906
Popularity
#692
Rating
4.0
Reviews
532
ISBNs
318
Languages
11
Favorited
94

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