Zora Neale Hurston wrote one of the all-time great Florida books with Their Eyes Were Watching God, not just a Florida classic, but an unsung American classic that should be taught in the schools. The hurricane scene alone is some of the best writing I have ever come across.
Hurston was born in Notasulga, AL in 1891 and moved to Eatonville, FL with her family in 1894. Eatonville, located 6 miles north of Orlando, was one of the first self-governing all-black municipalities in the United States and became prominently portrayed in her writings.
She worked as a maid for some time and, to finish high school and get herself an education she lied about her age, saying she was 16 instead of 26. For the rest of her life she told everybody she was 10 years younger than she really was.
After starting college at Howard University, she eventually finished at Barnard College of Columbia University and earned a B.A. in anthropology. Throughout her life she collected folk tales, wrote many stories and became associated with the Harlem Renaissance. But she always considered Eatonville, FL her home.
Hurston died in obscurity on January 28, 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Garden of Heavenly Rest, Fort Pierce, FL. Eventually, author Alice Walker (who later wrote The Color Purple) and Hurston scholar Charlotte D. Hunt found Hurston’s grave and erected a marker that reads “ZORA NEALE HURSTON / A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH / NOVELIST FOLKLORIST / ANTHROPOLOGIST / 1901–1960″
Today she her works are widely read and she is honored yearly at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities in Eatonville, FL.
On top of the books I have listed below, Hurston is also the author of about 50 short stories and plays. If you would like to purchase one of her works, I have a conveniently located amazon link for you right here.
Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
Mules and Men (1935)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Tell My Horse (1938)
Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)
Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)
Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States (2001)
The Complete Stories (2008)
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018)
