Author Biography by Rebecca Przetycki

Contextual Element: Author Biography by Rebecca Przetycki

                                                  Author Biography – Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama on January 15, 1891. She then moved to Eatonville, Florida to a place she referred to as a “Negro Town”. “In Eatonville, Hurston was never indoctrinated in inferiority, and she could see the evidence of black achievement all around her.” Hurston’s Father was a minister and a mayor. Her Mother was a former school teacher and raised eight children. This society and culture was used as a basis for her novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in which her characters are portrayed as resilient and accomplished.

Hurston lived a relatively privileged and happy life until her Mother died when she was thirteen.  Thereafter, she left home and found it challenging to make roots and find her place in society.  She referred to this time as her “haunted years”. Hurston graduated high school from Morgan Academy in 1918 and then entered Howard University. Here she joined a literary club where she publishes her first story, “John Redding Goes to Sea”. She eventually obtained her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College. Hurston’s first novel entitled, “Jonah’s Gourd Vine” was published in 1934. Hurston married several times during her life, not unlike the character Janie in her novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Although she moved around quite a bit in her life she always considered Eatonville her home.

Hurston was described as a “bright and powerful presence” and charmed everyone she came into contact with.  Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance and is considered to be one of the most notable and successful black woman authors of the first half of the twentieth century. Hurston wrote four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays. Her home was a spirited open house for artists.  “When Zora was there, she was the party”.  When her autobiography, “Dust Tracks on a Road” was published in 1942, she was profiled in “Who’s Who in America, Current Biography and Twentieth Century Author’s”. Unfortunately, she never received the financial rewards that she deserved. The highest royalty she received was $943.75, so when she died on January 28th, 1960 at 69 years old from a stroke, her neighbors had to take up a collection for her funeral. There was not enough money for a headstone so her grave was unmarked until 1973.

Alice Walker, a young writer who was inspired by Hurston took a trip to Fort Pierce to put a marker on Hurston’s grave. “Wading through waste high weeds, Alice Walker stumbled upon a sunken rectangular patch of ground that she determined to be Hurston’s grave”. The only headstone Walker could afford was a plain gray marker. “Borrowing from a Jean Toomer poem, she dressed the marker up with a fitting epitaph: “Zora Neale Hurston: A genius of the South”.