Wonderful Writers: Zora Neale Hurston

Hi All! Wonderful Writers is a weekly segment that comes out every Wednesday! Every week I spotlight and discuss one of my favorite authors, books by them, and talk about their writing styles and such. I hope you’ll enjoy. Feel free to participate as well by writing your own post and as always you are welcome to use the meme/pic if you’d like (just remember to credit me).

About: was a African American recording artist, folklorist, anthropologist, and author. Of Hurston’s four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. In her career, Hurston traveled extensively in the Caribbean and the American South and immersed herself in local cultural practices to conduct her anthropological research and was known for her strong political views. In the last decade of her life she worked as a freelance writer.

What I’ve Read (so far):

• Their Eyes Were Watching God

Why She’s a Wonderful Writer:

I was exposed to Hurston’s writing through reading “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in one of my college English literature courses. Though I’ve only read one novel, I truly enjoyed Hurston’s powerful and influential writing. The novel may seem like just an intense story on the surface, but there are so many meanings in the text when you interpret the passages.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” was the first major novel published by a black woman. What makes the novel so special is its perspective on gender difference in a time period where peoples views were quite the opposite of what she wrote about. Hurston continued to be vocal about believed in and never let herself give into the standard and conventions.

“She knew things that nobody had ever told her… She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pastor of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one every sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making.”-Zora Neale Hurston

Have you read any of Hurston’s work? If so, tell me what’s your favorite book and what did you like about it?