• “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

• “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.”

• “Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.”

• “Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.” Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

Books by and about Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston : Novels and Stories : Jonah’s Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories (Library of America) - When she died in obscurity in 1960, all her books were out of print. Now, Zora Neale Hurston is recognized as one of the most important and influential modern American writers. This volume, with its companion, Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings, brings together for the first time all of Hurston’s best works in one authoritative set. It features the acclaimed 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, a lyrical masterpiece about a woman’s struggle for love and independence. Jonah’s Gourd Vine, based on the story of Hurston’s parents, details the rise and fall of a preacher torn between spirit and flesh. Moses, Man of the Mountain is a high-spirited retelling of the Exodus story in black vernacular. Seraph on the Suwanee portrays the passionate clash between a poor southern “cracker” and her willful husband. A selection of short stories further displays Hurston’s unique fusion of folk traditions and literary modernism--comic, ironic, and soaringly poetic.

Zora Neale Hurston : Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings : Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Dust Tracks on a Road, Selected Articles companion to Hurston’s Novels and Stories presents her nonfiction work, which is perhaps less familiar but no less important than her fiction in the body of black literature. This is the first time the unexpurgated version of her 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on the Road, is being published; sections deemed too provocative (dealing with politics, race, and sex) have been restored. Mules and Men (1935) is a collection of African American folklore she gleaned on travels in the South, while Tell My Horse (1938) tenders her personal findings on African-based religion in Jamaica and Haiti. Additionally, 22 magazine and book articles with anthropological themes (Hurston did graduate work in that field) that have never been gathered into book form are corralled here. As readers only familiar with her fiction will discover, she couches her nonfiction in the same visceral yet poetic style - for instance, this quote from Dust Tracks: ‘It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.’ It will never be easier to acquire a complete set of Hurston’s nonfiction than now.

Zora Neale Hurston : Jump at the Sun - feature-length biography about Zora Neale Hurston was broadcast on PBS' American Masters series.

Zora Is My Name! (1990) - Ruby Dee

LINKS FOR LEARNING: ZORA NEALE HURSTON

• Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, Eatonvile/Orange Country, Florida - a multi-day, multi-disciplinary event celebrating the life and work Zora Neale Hurston, the significance of her hometown, Eatonville, Florida and the cultural contributions people of African ancestry have made to the United States and world culture.
• The Official Zora Neale Hurston Website
• Voices From the Gaps, Women Artists & Writers of Color: Zora Neale Hurston - a web-based trans-national academic community including students, teachers, artists, and scholars providing resources about artists and writers.
• Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive - an academic website that will provide a repository of biographical, critical, and contextual materials related to Hurston's life and work.
• Zora Heale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress - Deposited as typescripts in the United States Copyright Office between 1925 and 1944, most of the plays remained unpublished and unproduced until they were rediscovered in the Copyright Deposit Drama Collection in 1997.
• Zora Neale Hurston / Richard Wright Foundation - The nation's resource center for writers, readers, and supporters of Black Literature.
• Folktales of Zora Neale Hurston
• Jump at the Sun - PBS American Masters program
• Zora Neale Hurston - Wikipedia