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Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters
A landmark collection of more than five hundred letters written by a woman at the heart of the Harlem Renaissanc--an author who remains one of the most intriguing people in American cultural history.
Alice Walker’s 1975 Ms. magazine article "Looking for Zora" reintroduced Zora Neale Hurston to the American literary landscape, and ushered in a virtual renaissance for a writer who was a bestselling author at her peak in the 1930s, but died penniless and in obscurity some three decades later.
Since that rediscovery of novelist, anthropologist, playwright, folklorist, essayist, and poet Zora Neale Hurston, her books--from the classic love story Their Eyes Were Watching God to her controversial autobiography, Dust Tracks on the Road --have sold millions of copies. Hurston is now taught in American, African American, and women's studies courses in high schools and universities from coast to coast.
Now, in Zora Neale A Life in Letters , the fascinating life of one of the most enigmatic literary figures of the twentieth century comes alive. Through letters to Harlem Renaissance friends Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Dorothy West, and Carl Van Vechten, and to bestselling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Fannie Hurst, among others, readers experience the exuberance and trials of Hurston’s life. Her letters to her patron, Mrs. Charlotte "Godmother" Osgood Mason, are laced with equal amounts of cynicism and reverence, and offer a fascinating glimpse of the perilously thin line Hurston tread to maintain vital monetary support as she pursued her art and avant-garde lifestyle (which included crossing the country collecting folklore, and a job as story editor at Paramount Pictures in the 1940s).
Meticulously edited and annotated, this landmark collection of letters will provide her fans, as well as those discovering Hurston for the first time, with a penetrating and profound portrait into the life, writings (four novels, a play, an autobiography, and countless essays), and impressive imagination of one of the most amazing characters to grace American letters.
Alice Walker’s 1975 Ms. magazine article "Looking for Zora" reintroduced Zora Neale Hurston to the American literary landscape, and ushered in a virtual renaissance for a writer who was a bestselling author at her peak in the 1930s, but died penniless and in obscurity some three decades later.
Since that rediscovery of novelist, anthropologist, playwright, folklorist, essayist, and poet Zora Neale Hurston, her books--from the classic love story Their Eyes Were Watching God to her controversial autobiography, Dust Tracks on the Road --have sold millions of copies. Hurston is now taught in American, African American, and women's studies courses in high schools and universities from coast to coast.
Now, in Zora Neale A Life in Letters , the fascinating life of one of the most enigmatic literary figures of the twentieth century comes alive. Through letters to Harlem Renaissance friends Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Dorothy West, and Carl Van Vechten, and to bestselling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Fannie Hurst, among others, readers experience the exuberance and trials of Hurston’s life. Her letters to her patron, Mrs. Charlotte "Godmother" Osgood Mason, are laced with equal amounts of cynicism and reverence, and offer a fascinating glimpse of the perilously thin line Hurston tread to maintain vital monetary support as she pursued her art and avant-garde lifestyle (which included crossing the country collecting folklore, and a job as story editor at Paramount Pictures in the 1940s).
Meticulously edited and annotated, this landmark collection of letters will provide her fans, as well as those discovering Hurston for the first time, with a penetrating and profound portrait into the life, writings (four novels, a play, an autobiography, and countless essays), and impressive imagination of one of the most amazing characters to grace American letters.
896 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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About the author
Carla Kaplan
13 books4 followersCarla Kaplan is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University. She is the author of The Erotics of Talk: Women's Writing and Feminist Paradigms, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, and Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance She is also editor of Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States and Dark Symphony and Other Works by Elizabeth Laura Adams.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 24, 2025
You must read this collection of 600+ letters if you are a fan of Zora Neale Hurston. In these letters to various people stretching across four decades, Hurston shares her feelings about other historical figures, previews her folklore research and book writing, and shares her views on race relations in the country. I enjoyed reading her pieces of wisdom she had to share with the letter's recipients. Although I wish we had the replies to Zora, I wonder if those are available to read in the archives, or were they lost in the burning of her papers? I also found her views on politics interesting, especially when she made a prescient comment about how she could see how America's political parties were going to become polarized. Lastly, I kept a tally of all the books she mentioned that she read in her letters. I came up with at least 13. I'll look into seeing if I'll read any of them.
February 7, 2014
Wow!!!! Complex, complex, COMPLEX! Soror, Zora... Wow!!! A must read for those who love her work. To read these letters is like watching a throw-back Facebook and Twitter. Grab the popcorn and... just WOW. She was intense, she was beautiful, she was stubborn, she was beautiful, she was creative and imaginative, she was beautiful, she was happy and anger, she was hurt and bitter, she was loyal and forgiving, she was cunning and flippant, she was BEAUTIFUL AND HUMAN. I treasure her in all her complexity. These letters will make you smile, and laugh, and cry, and scratch your head, and spit forth a few "Chile Please!". My sorority sister, my inspiration, my mule-boned, lingo spittin' sister from another mister - Thank You!
March 16, 2015
Took me a year to finish this book of letters. what a remarkably complex life. (At last, I know what happened between her and Langston and the Mule Bone play. I always believed it was Zora's work alone.)
December 31, 2015
As a huge ZNH fan, I don't know how it gets any better than actually reading the letters she had written. What could get you closer to the lady herself than being a part of the most intimate thoughts she was willing to share.
March 8, 2015
Captivating, Fascinating & Compelling! I Loved It!
April 3, 2018
Anything by Zora Neale Hurston works for me. This book was close to 900 pages, though. I was able to finish it and get a better understanding of the person vs the writer.
April 18, 2019
Her enthusiasm for the work she did is infectious. At one point she lists about eight projects that she has in the works. She had a sense of mission, and it seems to have fueled everything she did.
April 28, 2008
Really interesting insight to Ms. Hurston's life, though at times I felt like I was intruding on something private by reading her correspondence. But I think you truly learn the person more by listening/reading the words from their mouth/pen than by reading the words of someone else about them.
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January 10, 2008I love letter collections and actually should read more of them; they offer such a wonderfully intimate view of the writer's life.
January 7, 2015
Unfortunately, these letters are only Zora's responses, but they are very interesting to read. A great companion to Boyd's biography.
January 11, 2009
It was a bit long but I liked learning about this woman and how she created one of the classic works despite being so down trodden.
October 2, 2020
I have loved her work all my life so this was an exceptional treat!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews