Zora Neale Hurston American Literary Culture

Genevieve West examines the cultural history of Zora Neale Hurston’s writing and the reception of her work, in an attempt to explain why Hurston died in obscure poverty only to be reclaimed as an important Harlem Renaissance writer decades after her death. Unlike other books on Hurston, this study focuses on how Hurston was marketed and reviewed during her career and how literary scholars reappraised her after her death. While her publisher's approach to marketing Hurston as an African American fiction writer and folklorist increased her popularity among the general reading public, her fellow Harlem Renaissance authors often excoriated her as an exploiter of African American culture and a propagator of black stereotypes. Eventually, the criticism outweighed the popularity, and her writing fell out of fashion. It was only after critics reconsidered her work in the 1960s and 1970s that she eventually regained her status as one of the best writers of her generation. No other book has focused on this aspect of Hurston's career, nor has any book so systematically used marketing materials and reviews to track Hurston's literary reputation. As a result, West's study will provide a new perspective on Hurston and on the ways that the politics of race, class, and gender impact canon formation in American literary culture. This study is based on numerous interviews, short fiction previously undocumented in Hurston scholarship, an innovative analysis of advertisements and dust jackets, examinations of letters by and about Hurston, and the examination of historical/literary contexts, including the Harlem Renaissance, the protest movement, the assimilationist movement, the Black Arts movement, and the rise of black feminist thought.

Hurston was renowned for her portrayal of assertive women in her fiction, folklore, and drama. This book explores her development as an assertive woman and outspoken writer, emphasizing the impact of the African American oral traditions and vernacular speech patterns of Harlem, Polk County, and her hometown of Eatonville, Florida on the development of her personal and artistic voice. The study traces the development of her assertive women characters, the emphasis upon verbal performance and verbal empowerment, the significance of down home Southern humor, and the importance of an ideology of assertive individualism in Hurston's writings and analyzes changes in Hurston's personal style. Hurston articulated an assertive spirit and voice that had a profound influence on the development of her professional reputation and on the course of African American literature, folklore, and culture of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. This study combines literary criticism and biography in tracing her often controversial career. This wide-ranging book focuses upon links between Hurston's fiction and nonfiction, and includes analysis of her plays, which have often been neglected in studies of her writing.(Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York-Buffalo, 1989; revised with new introduction)

A Finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography “A complete pleasure to read.” —Lisa Page, Washington Post Novelist Zora Neale Hurston and poet Langston Hughes, two of America’s greatest writers, first met in New York City in 1925. Drawn to each other, they helped launch a radical journal, Fire!! Later, meeting by accident in Alabama, they became close as they traveled together—Hurston interviewing African Americans for folk stories, Hughes getting his first taste of the deep South. By illuminating their lives, work, competitiveness, and ambitions, Yuval Taylor savvily details how their friendship and literary collaborations dead-ended in acrimonious accusations.

Traces the life and literary career of Zora Neal Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston, one the first great African-American novelists, was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance and an inspiration for future generations of writers. Widely studied in high school literature courses, her novels are admired for their depiction of Southern black culture and their strong female characters. Critical Companion to Zora Neale Hurston is a reliable and up-to-date resource for high school and college-level students, providing reliable information on Hurston's life and work. This new volume covers all her writings, including Their Eyes Were Watching God; her landmark works of folklore and anthropology, such as Mules and Men; and shorter works, such as her story The Gilded Six-Bits.

From “one of the greatest writers of our time” (Toni Morrison)—the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God—a collection of remarkable stories, including eight “lost” Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time. New York Times’ Books to Watch for Buzzfeed’s Most Anticipated Books Newsweek’s Most Anticipated Books Forbes.com’s Most Anticipated Books E!’s Top Books to Read Glamour’s Best Books Essence’s Best Books by Black Authors In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston—the sole black student at the college—was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.” During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston’s world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer’s voice and her contributions to America’s literary traditions.

Hurston's first novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), earned comments ranging from "most vital" to "a disappointment," although the reviewers consistently praised her use of dialect and language. This unique collection includes reviews of Mules and Men (1935), the first collection of African-American folklore published by an African American. Their Eyes Were Watching God, her 1973 novel that addressed a woman's desire for independence and individuality, was favorably reviewed by Alain Locke, the first Black Rhodes scholar and one of Hurston's professors at Howard University, and unfavorably reviewed by Richard Wright, who testily complained that the book was addressed to a white audience.

“ I mean to live and die by my own mind,” Zora Neale Hurston told the writer Countee Cullen. Arriving in Harlem in 1925 with little more than a dollar to her name, Hurston rose to become one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance, only to die in obscurity. Not until the 1970s was she rediscovered by Alice Walker and other admirers. Although Hurston has entered the pantheon as one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century, the true nature of her personality has proven elusive. Now, a brilliant, complicated and utterly arresting woman emerges from this landmark book. Carla Kaplan, a noted Hurston scholar, has found hundreds of revealing, previously unpublished letters for this definitive collection; she also provides extensive and illuminating commentary on Hurston’s life and work, as well as an annotated glossary of the organizations and personalities that were important to it. From her enrollment at Baltimore’s Morgan Academy in 1917, to correspondence with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Langston Hughes, Dorothy West and Alain Locke, to a final query letter to her publishers in 1959, Hurston’s spirited correspondence offers an invaluable portrait of a remarkable, irrepressible talent.