About the author
Zora Neale Hurston was an American novelist, folklorist, anthropologist, and filmmaker associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Her work joined literary invention to field research in Black communities across the American South and the Caribbean.
Hurston writes the frame in a rich literary English and the speech in vivid Black dialect, and the two registers together make the book's music. Janie's real journey is toward speech — the right to tell her own story in her own words, which is exactly how the novel ends.
Where to start
Start with Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie Crawford trades safety for love and finds her own voice on the road and in the Everglades.
