Zora Neale Hurston

by Cheryl R. Hopson

The life, work, and legacy of one of the twentieth century’s most published African American women.
 
This book explores the life and legacy of Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), the most-published African American woman of the first half of the twentieth century. Famous today as the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God , Hurston was also an anthropologist and a folklorist. In this new biography, Cheryl Hopson casts Hurston as a modern woman on the move, particularly as a collector of stories in and around the Jim Crow South. Hopson details her rejection by the Harlem Renaissance as well as her recovery by Black feminists such as Alice Walker years after her death. The result is an accessible and fresh account of the celebrated writer’s life and work.

Genres: Biography

224 pages, Paperback

Published August 12, 2024

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not necessarily a big fun read, but it gets 5 stars anyway because it succeeds at what it is intended to do: That is, provide a concise look at this important author's life and work. I really enjoyed reading why Hurston was and still is important, and hope others will also. I learned some new things, but even if I hadn't, the book would still have been well worth my time.

I have read all of Hurston's work that I know of, and am always eager to read more about her life. So when I saw this on the New Books shelf at the public library, I grabbed it immediately and set aside all other reading until I finished it (not a long book, so that was an easy decision). So glad I did!

In a matter of days, the unfinished manuscript of Hurston's last novel, The Life of Herod the Great, will be published, and I'm extremely curious to read it. So it's a fun coincidence to have read this book right before the new release.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short but interesting book about a fiction writer I knew by name from lists of artists contributing to the Harlem Renaissance, but I've not read any of her works.

On the down side, the biographer is a bit repetitious for such a short volume. Like she thinks we'll forget things between chapters (and sometimes paragraphs). On the flip side, she provides detailed synopses and analysis for many of Hurston's works, which is helpful. Perhaps too much so, because one with a long list of books to be read already might find their appetite for Hurston sated after completing just this 150-page book. I think I have.