Known to refer to herself on occasion as "Zora, Queen of the Niggerati," Zora Neale Hurston cut a provocative figure during the Harlem Renaissance, both in her person and in her writing. As folklorist, teacher, anthropologist, and author, Hurston was a...
[more]Known to refer to herself on occasion as "Zora, Queen of the Niggerati," Zora Neale Hurston cut a provocative figure during the Harlem Renaissance, both in her person and in her writing. As folklorist, teacher, anthropologist, and author, Hurston was a champion of black heritage. She visited Haiti and Jamaica to study black folklore, which she then incorporated into her work. She was also highly image-conscious. Her autobiography was a masterful massaging of the actual events of her life, beginning with a false birth date (she claimed it as 1901, but in fact it was 1891) and including glamorous details wherever possible.
An extensive education at Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University set the stage for Hurston's heady rise to literary fame -- and infamy. Her second novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937), is partly based on her own controversial affair with a student 17 years her junior. The story is written from the perspective of a young black woman, Janie Crawford, and heavily employs dialect and folk imagery (inviting comparisons with William Faulkner, among others).
The book, like much of Hurston's work, received mixed reviews from her contemporaries: the white press found it fascinating, if flawed; black critics denounced it for trivializing the condition of African American people. The renowned Richard Wright said that Hurston's characters where "nothing but minstrels," and others felt she should be writing protest novels aimed at social change. As a result of these attacks from the literary world and because of Hurston's own outspoken radical opinions, her work remained largely unread.
Hurston's last years were spent in poverty, and she died in 1960. In the 1970s, writer Alice Walker made it her mission to establish Hurston as one of the major black woman writers. Walker found the location of Hurston's unmarked grave in Florida and erected a headstone. Today, Hurston's work enjoys a renaissance of popularity and is recognized as a brilliant contribution to American letters.
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