Pagine1891–1960 · Notasulga, Alabama (raised in Eatonville, Florida) · also known as Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-Black incorporated towns in the US, and became a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance and a trained anthropologist who collected Black folklore across the South (Mules and Men, 1935). Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) follows Janie Crawford’s search for love and selfhood in rich Southern dialect. She died poor and nearly forgotten; Alice Walker’s 1975 essay brought her back to readers.
Begin with Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Part of our American Classics reading list — print it, email it to yourself or share it.
Edgar Allan Poe · Nathaniel Hawthorne · Herman Melville · Frederick Douglass · Emily Dickinson · Mark Twain · Edith Wharton · Jack London · F. Scott Fitzgerald · Ernest Hemingway · John Steinbeck · Toni Morrison
Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-Black incorporated towns in the US, and became a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance and a trained anthropologist who collected Black folklore across the South (Mules and Men, 1935). Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) follows Janie Crawford’s search for love and selfhood in rich Southern dialect.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is usually considered Zora Neale Hurston’s best-known work, followed by Mules and Men.
Most readers start with Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Both refer to the same writer.
Zora Neale Hurston’s books are still under copyright, so they are not free to download, but many can be borrowed free from your public library or Open Library — we link to them below.