Product Description
In the early twentieth century, three women of color helped shape a new world of ethnographic discovery. Ella Cara Deloria, a Sioux woman from South Dakota, Zora Neale Hurston, an African American woman from Florida, and Jovita Gonzalez, a Mexican American woman from the Texas borderlands, achieved renown in the fields of folklore studies, anthropology, and ethno-linguistics during the 1920s and 1930s. While all three collaborated with leading male intellectuals in these disciplines to produce innovative ethnographic accounts of their own communities, they also turned away from ethnographic meaning making at key points in their careers and explored the realm of storytelling through vivid mixed-genre novels centred on the lives of women.In this book, Cotera offers an intellectual history situated in the 'borderlands' between conventional accounts of anthropology, women's history, and African American, Mexican American and Native American intellectual genealogies. At its core is also a meditation on what it means to draw three women - from disparate though nevertheless interconnected histories of marginalization - into conversation with one another.Can such a conversation reveal a shared history that has been erased due to institutional racism, sexism, and simple neglect? Is there a mode of comparative reading that can explore their points of connection even as it remains attentive to their differences? These are the questions at the core of this book, which offers not only a corrective history centred on the lives of women of colour intellectuals, but also a methodology for comparative analysis shaped by their visions of the world. ... Read more

Product Description
Zora's mother used to tell her to "Jump at de sun." She wanted Zora to be proud of herself and to do great things. This biography tells of her courageous struggle to write about the culture she valued. Zora was one of the first scholars to promote African-American culture as a self-contained heritage. Photos.(Y oung Adult) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"My Opinion"
This book is very good, if you are doing research on Zora Neale Hurston or Eatonville, Florida that is. I don't mean to say that it is not good for anything else, I'm just saying that, as a 16 yr. old Junior in H.S., this is a great book for doing research in. ... Read more

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Product Description

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

Customer Reviews (10)

Wonderful
Zora Neale Hurston's book is a wonderfully engaging and moving story of love and hope.The reader, the incomparable Ruby Dee, makes each character stand up and confront you.I loved this.

Wonderfully Written and Beautifully Read
The combination of Ms Hurston's written spoken and Ms Dee's spoken word is unbeatable and unbelievable. I would recommend this to anyone the story and it's presentation are unforgetable!

eyes were on god
item was in great condition and was sent right away.Enjoyed doing businesess with them.Thanks

Unbelievable.
This is a remarkable reading of one of the finest novels to come out of the South in the 20th century. Ruby Dee is simply amazing. I have not one disappointment about this production and whole-heartedly recommend it without reservation.

Thoroughly enjoyable listening experience
I've been listening to several of the "classics" on audio book during my commute to work, and decided to give this book a try based on several positive reviews.It turned out to be a great choice.Not only was the story engaging, but the performance by Ruby Dee made it feel like I was listening to the actual characters in Florida in the early 20th century.Her characterizations were outstanding and it really helped me follow the story.

One of the things I look for in literature is its ability to transform me into different cultures and times and give me perspectives that I have never experienced myself.Hurston does exactly that with this novel and it gives me a desire to read more of her books.She brings out not only the misery, but the joy that the characters experience in everyday life.I highly recommend this audio book. ... Read more

Product Description

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

Customer Reviews (1)

Their Eyes Were Watching God
The book had some marked highlights from the previous owner.They did not hinder my enjoyment at all.In fact, it added to my insight as to what another reader thought was relevant.Very good book.It was "The Big Read" promoted by our local public libraries and Wake Forest University Library.We had book discussions, the movie and other activities during "The Big Read".Excellent!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Though she died penniless and forgotten, Zora Neale Hurston is now recognized as a major figure in African American literature. Best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she also published numerous short stories and essays, three other novels, and two books on black folklore.

Even avid readers of Hurston's prose, however, may be surprised to know that she was also a serious and ambitious playwright throughout her career. Although several of her plays were produced during her lifetime-and some to public acclaim-they have languished in obscurity for years. Even now, most critics and historians gloss over these texts, treating them as supplementary material for understanding her novels. Yet, Hurston's dramatic works stand on their own merits and independently of her fiction.

Now, eleven of these forgotten dramatic writings are being published together for the first time in this carefully edited and annotated volume. Filled with lively characters, vibrant images of rural and city life, biblical and folk tales, voodoo, and, most importantly, the blues, readers will discover a "real Negro theater" that embraces all the richness of black life. ... Read more

Product Description
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 Hurston: 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.


From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
Whatever happened to Zora Neale Hurston? In the 1930s her stories, novels, folklore studies, and plays were all over the bestseller lists. By the '60s she was forgotten--a reversal of fortune captured in the extraordinary collection Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.

Why did Hurston's star fade? Simple weariness, her correspondence suggests. She was happier, it seems, tilling her Florida garden than revealing her soul to the world. She was also not shy of crossing swords with the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes, and in a time of growing militancy and the awakening civil rights movement Hurston became increasingly conservative, developing political stances that, editor Kaplan writes, "have often baffled her admirers." Hurston developed a pen-stilling, probably ungrounded suspicion that anything she wrote would be stolen by other writers, who would "then hate me for being alive to make their pretensions out a lie. And then take all kinds of steps to head me off."

Having enjoyed early fame, Hurston died alone and in poverty. This well-assembled and very welcome book traces her sad path, and it adds much to our understanding of the once-neglected writer. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Hurston Fans Rejoice!
This collection of Hurston's letters not only offers insight into the life and thoughts of this fiercely independent and enigmatic writer, it also lends clarity to the historical and cultural context in which they were written. Kaplan's lively introductions to each decade are laced with intelligent commentary and fascinating details that define the complexities of Hurston's life and time.

a new fan
I wasn't a Hurston fan when I started reading, but now I find myself fascinated by her life and her times.This book was such a detailed and compelling introduction to both.And so well written!

Great Book
An illuminating collection of letters and biography about one of our best American writers.Her rise in scholarship through sheer guts and tragic fading from popularity and opportunity will leave you feeling both sadness and respect for her audacity.

Zorz Neale Hurston - A life in Letters
What a great way to write a biography.Through Hurston's letters, Kaplan traces Hurston's life.Her annotations are through and so full of the story of this extraordinary woman.I loved it.

Somewhat off target
While the book is an excellent compilation of Zora Hurston's extant letters, the editorial commentary is at times off target, straying into academic pontifications without foundation. ... Read more

Product Description
Zora Neale Hurston is most known for her classic novel "Their Eyes Were watching God." She, however, was also a noted playwright. Collected here are early plays and stories by Hurston.

Works Include:
De Turkey and De Law
Poker!
Three Plays
... Read more

Product Description
Zora Neale Hurston(1891 -- 1960) 

Of the various signs that the study of literature in America has been transformed, none is more salient than is the resurrection and canonization of Zora Neale Hurston. Twenty years ago, Hurston's work was largely out-of-print, her literary legacy alive only to a tiny, devoted band of readers who were often forced to photocopy her works if they were to be taught ... Today her works are central to the canon of African-American, American, and Women's literatures ... The author of four novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937),Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948); two books of folklore -- Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938); an autobiography, Dust Tracks On a Road (1942); and over 50 short stories, essays, and plays, Hurston was one of the most widely acclaimed Black authors for the two decades between 1925 and 1945.

Customer Reviews (1)

Wide ranging views of a fascinating writer's work
Anyone doing critical literary study of Zora Neal Hurston and her writing will find this book a must read. And just plain fans of her work, who happen to have a scholarly nature,will likelyfind something of interest here as well, if it be only the reprints of various reviews of Hurston's books from the time of their original publication in the 1930s and 1940s.After the 34 pages ofbook reviews, at the heart of the book are 14 critical essays on Hurston's work from 14 different scholars. Also includes a brief chronology of Hurston's life, a bibliography, and an index. All in all, a lot of perspectives and commentary and scholarship all brought together in a compact volume that would be especially useful for scholars studying American literature, Black Studies, or Women's Studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Zora: a funny, fascinating story teller
I studied Zora Hurston in a Southern women's writer's class and fell in love with her wit, truthfulness, cattiness, and charm. She's one of the best, if not the best, black women writers of the past. She keeps her writing in the southern black dialect that makes it most appealing and real. I have all her books, words on cassette, and a video, "Zora is My Name." She makes a great discussion group topic. I've taught college lit classes about her and her works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good introduction to Hurston
The short stories contained in this book reflect the manifold talents of Zora Neale Hurston as a fiction writer. Hurston knew her subject matter inside and out, whether it be the poor African American communities of Florida or Harlem during the "Renaissance." She blends folklore and keen observations with her anthropological knowledge to create stories that seem like little pieces of real life. In stories like "Spunk," "Isis" and "Sweat," she heralds her brilliant novels such as "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and "Jonah's Gourd Vine." Hurston's mastery of biblical themes and styles is reflected in "Book of Harlem" and "Herod on Trial" (in the appendix), a skill she would later put to use in her masterpiece "Moses, Man of the Mountain." Also, in almost all of the stories, the dialogue is authentic and very fun to read.

spunkdefied
I really enjoyed reading this book.I also saw a performance in Cleveland, OH.The book is so jazzy you really can feel each charactersemotions.I lovedthe "Gilded Six Bits" part.It's atoe-tappin',finger-snappin',belly-shakin',buttocks movin' kinda book!Youwill enjoy it! ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the Afro-American writer well-known for her novels and collections of folklore. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

ZORA NEALE HURSTON AT HER BEST
THIS BOOK IS WONDERFUL! HURSTON IS A WONDERFUL WRITER.IT IS A SHAME THAT SUCH A TALENTED WRITER DID NOT RECEIVE MUCH RECOGNITION UNTIL AFTER HER DEMISE. "THE GILDED SIX-BITS" HAS TO BE THE MOST COMPELLING SHORT STORY WITHIN THIS ANTHOLOGY.IT IS A VIVID TALE THAT TRULY REFLECTS THE POWER OF MONEY.IT ILLUSTRATES THE EXTENT THAT SOME PEOPLE WILL GO TO IN ORDER TO GET THEIR HANDS ON "THE GREEN."SIMULTANEOUSLY, IT DOES REINFORCE THE IDEA THAT "ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD."MOST IMPORTANTLY, THIS STORY ILLUSTRATES THE POWER OF LOVE AND THE BEAUTY OF LOYALTY AND "FORGIVENESS."NEVER BEFORE HAVE A READ SUCH A POSITIVE STORY ABOUT AFRICAN-AMERICAN LOVE. ... Read more

Product Description
“ 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 ofthe 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Mixed Review
Kaplan has an excellent compilation here, but readers who bought her hard copy first edition and compared it with her second edition paperback will notice a complete rewrite of her commentary of the Ruby McCollum story. In the first edition, Kaplan states that "McCollum did not testify at her trial," and gives a rather superficial (and inaccurate) account of the Adams-McCollum connection. In the second edition, she correctly reports the trial and greatly improves her account of the story, with the exception of erring in Ruby McCollum's age by failing to do primary research and visit McCollum's grave to see the marker.

What Kaplan also fails to do is to mention my name, and the fact that my contact with her regarding my book, The Trial of Ruby McCollum (available on Amazon), included the complete transcript of the missing trial as well as other detailed research that she evidently either revisited with greater thoroughness, or discovered for the first time. She had promised an acknowledgment of my contribution to her work, but seems to have forgotten the promise. This makes me question her other research, and the proper crediting of sources.

I cannot argue that her book is otherwise a great contribution to Hurston scholarship, but I can set the record straight on how her work was improved by my contributions without even a footnote.

Zora Writ Large
You'll fall in love with Zora through the letters that she wrote from the early 20s until her death in 1960. A compelling and fascinating woman who didn't leave much unsaid. The letters still brim with vitality and energy and reflect the character of a woman way ahead of her time.

A Writing Spirit
Zora Neale Hurston told her life story through the many novels and plays she wrote, but she also told it through the incredible volume of letters she wrote to friends and supporters as well as to her enemies and detractors. She was a prolific letter writer whose main theme was always on her public life of writing.

Through Kaplan's "A Life in Letters," Hurston reveals all the joys and frustrations, the highs and lows of a writing life. They also reveal her constant struggles, despite critical acclaim, to make ends meet.

But this woman loved to write and loved an audience. Her letters are inside proof of her amazing talent and joyful, triumphant will. They very clearly convey her belief that words and stories can transform people and shape events.

It's a complex and impressive book to read. Kaplan organizes the letters by decade and provides a personal and professional context for each chapter through scholarly introductions and extensive footnotes. Even some 50 years after her death, the tone and flavor in Hurston's letters are so charged and immediate you almost want to drop her a line. Who knows? This woman's spirit was so strong, she may even write back.

Adventurous life-journey captured in letters
Kaplan's collection of Hurston's letters provides her fans with a first-hand intimate view into the mind of the author which has previously been restricted to the perview of scholars. For the first time, readers can draw their own conclusions about Hurston's often contradictory, enigmatic, and adventurous life.
The letters are logically organized in chronological order with a comprehensive and lively introduction to each decade. Kaplan's painstakingly thorough research, evidenced in her footnotes and glossary, help guide the reader's interpetation and understanding of events in a way that a biography cannot. For this reason, I have read Valerie Boyd's excellent biography in tandem with Kaplan's collection of Hurston's letters. I was also impressed with the "new" research in Kaplan's book that sheds light on some of Hurston's social and political stands, such as her involement in the first black doll to be produced in the U.S. In addition to the many new facts she presents, I also found Kaplan's editorial comments to be extremely enlightening and well-founded. I beleive that most fans who read this collection of letters will most likely feel the same way toward Kaplan as I do . . . deeply grateful for the gift of insight. ... Read more

Product Description
Now frequently anthologized, Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat" was first published in Fire!!, a legendary literary magazine of the Harlem Renaissance, whose sole issue appeared in November 1926. In "Sweat" Hurston claimed the voice that animates her mature fiction, notably the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God; the themes of marital conflict and the development of spiritual consciousness were introduced as well. "Sweat" exemplifies Hurston's lifelong concern with women's relation to language and the literary possibilities of the black vernacular.This casebook for this story includes an introduction by the editor; a chronology of the author's life; the authoritative text of "Sweat"; and a second story, "The Gilded Six-Bits." Published in 1932, this second story was written after Hurston had spent years conducting fieldwork in the southern United States. The volume also includes Hurston's groundbreaking 1934 essay, "Characteristics of Negro Expressionism," and excerpts from her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. An article by folklorist Roger Abrahams, along with selected blues and spirituals, provide additional cultural contexts for the story. Critical commentary comes from Alice Walker, who led the recovery of Hurston's work in the 1970s, Robert E. Hemenway, Hengry Louis Gates Jr., Gayl Jones, John Lowe, Kathryn Lee Seidel, and Mary Helen Washington. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

i haven't read this book yet
i haven't read sweat but i have been hearing great things about this book and i would like to know how i can get a preview of this book"Sweat"by author Zora Hourston ... Read more

Product Description

The author of such great works as Their Eyes Were Watching God , Moses, Man of the Mountain, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Mules and Men, as well as essays, folklore, short stories, poetry, and more, Zora Neale Hurston is regarded as an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the most important and influential African American writers of the past century. Through numerous biographies, many have come to know and love Hurston, and her work has found its way into high school and college curriculums. Lost years have been found, birth dates discovered, and the intricacies of relationships with friends, spouses, and family members have been uncovered.Yet, there is still a part of Hurston's life that is not accounted for. Aware of the challenges she faced in terms of constant ill health, personal and professional disappointments, struggles to fund her projects, even the inability sometimes to buy groceries, one wonders:How did she do it?What did it take for Hurston to accomplish all that she did?What did it take for her to live through the struggles she experienced? What allowed her to live-not just survive, but live?

The author of such great works as Their Eyes Were Watching God , Moses, Man of the Mountain, Jonah's Gourd Vine, and Mules and Men, as well as essays, folklore, short stories, poetry, and more, Zora Neale Hurston is regarded as an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the most important and influential African American writers of the past century. Through numerous biographies, many have come to know and love Hurston, and her work has found its way into high school and college curriculums. Lost years have been found, birth dates discovered, and the intricacies of relationships with friends, spouses, and family members have been uncovered. Yet, there is still a part of Hurston's life that is not accounted for. Aware of the challenges she faced in terms of constant ill health, personal and professional disappointments, struggles to fund her projects, even the inability sometimes to buy groceries, one wonders: How did she do it?What did it take for Hurston to accomplish all that she did?What did it take for her to live through the struggles she experienced? What allowed her to live—not just survive, but live? This new biography takes into account the whole woman, the writer, the philosopher, and the spiritual soul, examining each as it is reflected in her career, fiction and nonfiction publications, social and political activity, and, ultimately, her death.

When we ask what it is that animated the woman who achieved all that she did, we must necessarily probe further. Not one of the other existing biographies discusses or analyzes Hurston's spirituality in any sustained sense, even though this spirituality played a significant role in her life and works. As Plant shows, Zora Neale Hurston's ability to achieve and to endure all she did came from the courage of her convictions. She believed strongly in her self and knew her self-worth. The source of her thought, philosophy, and politics was a belief in self that was profoundly centered and anchored in spirituality.

Product Description
Writers of the Harlem Renaissance generally fall into "folk," "bourgeois," or "proletarian" aesthetic categories. Jones argues that all three aesthetics influence the historically mislabeled works of Hurston, West, and Fauset, and that they share a drive to challenge racial, class, and gender oppression. The book also discusses the writers in relation to contemporary African American women authors. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent deconstruction of works by three important writers
Excellent analysis of Jessie Fauset (The Chinaberry Tree; Plum Bun), Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) and Dorothy West (The Living is Easy; The Wedding)- three, often underappreciated, female writers of the Harlem Renaissance.The vast majority of critical analysis and trumpeting of male writers of this important period of African American literature continues to reflect the gender, class and racial politics that these three writers explored in their fiction.

The author presents well-supported analyses of the short stories and major works of these writers whose prose documented the multifaceted experiences of class, gender and racial realities continuing to play out in American society. All three of these writers successfully integrated aspects of the folk, bourgeois, and proletarian aesthetics of black experience in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century.

The study "adopts a variety of critical approaches, including historical and feminist, in an effort to better understand the relationship between narrative technique and formal elements (theme, plot, character, symbols) . . ." The author deconstructs the plot and symbolism in the short stories and major novels, and discusses the life and milieu in which each woman found herself and its impact on literary output.The works of all three authors contributed in turn to the publication and critical success of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor, opening the doors to a wider racial readership for these and other writers who followed.

It is a powerful irony that compelling literature continues to be subjectively dismissed for arbitrary reasons. To judge any work as being relevant only to a particular racial category, gender, political outlook, or socioeconomic class and ignore it as not contributing to or speaking to the wider society (which includes more than just a white middle class) only perpetuates the crisis that we find ourselves in today.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Critical Essays on Zora Neale Hurston
This is from a Series of Essays on American Literature, this particular one having beenedited by Gloria L. Cronin.

The volume on Hurston, is a collection of book reviews and articles which addresses Hurston's four novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948) and other works.

Comprehensive. ... Read more