American folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891. An important figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston’s works focused on African American culture and the rural south.  

Hurston co-founded Howard University's student-operated newspaper The Hilltop and studied cultural anthropology, eventually becoming the first Black woman to graduate from Barnard College. From 1936-1937 Hurston was awarded the world-renowned Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada twice for her research of cultural anthropology in Haiti and Jamaica. It was during this time that she penned Their Eyes Were Watching God in only seven weeks. In 1943 she was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations for her novel Dust Tracks.

With her extensive knowledge of Black folklore, culture, and hoodoo, Zora Neale Hurston crafted literature that offered unprecedented anecdotes of the Black experience in the African Diaspora. 

Hurston has written dozens of works—novels, short stories, and essays—yet never lived to see her success. Zora Neale Hurston’s legacy lives on as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, and with this guide, you’ll know exactly where to start with her work.

Their Eyes Were Watching God
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong Black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African American literature.

Barracoon
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. Barracoon presents a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last “Black Cargo” ship to arrive in the United States.

Mules and Men
Mules and Men is a treasury of Black America's folklore as collected by a famous storyteller and anthropologist who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed an oral history of the South since the time of slavery. Returning to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, to gather material, Zora Neale Hurston recalls "a hilarious night with a pinch of everything social mixed with the storytelling." Set intimately within the social context of Black life, the stories, "big old lies," songs, Vodou customs, and superstitions recorded in these pages capture the imagination and bring back to life the humor and wisdom that is the unique heritage of African Americans.

Seraph on the Suwanee
Acclaimed for her pitch-perfect accounts of rural Black life and culture, Zora Neale Hurston explores new territory with her novel Seraph on the Suwanee—a story of two people at once deeply in love and deeply at odds. Full of insights into the nature of love, attraction, faith, and loyalty, it follows young Arvay Henson, convinced she will never find true happiness, as she defends herself from unwanted suitors with hysterical fits and religious fervor. But into her life comes bright and enterprising Jim Meserve, who knows that Arvay is the woman for him, and nothing she can do will dissuade him.

Alive with the same passion and understanding of the human heart that made Their Eyes Were Watching God a classic, Hurston's Seraph on the Suwanee masterfully explores the evolution of a marriage and the conflicting desires of an unforgettable young woman in search of herself and her place in the world.

Moses, Man of the Mountain
In this 1939 novel based on the familiar story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston blends the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of Black folklore and song to create a compelling allegory of power, redemption, and faith. Narrated in a mixture of biblical rhetoric, Black dialect, and colloquial English, Hurston traces Moses's life from the day he is launched into the Nile river in a reed basket, to his development as a great magician, to his transformation into the heroic rebel leader, the Great Emancipator. From his dramatic confrontations with Pharaoh to his fragile negotiations with the wary Hebrews, this very human story is told with great humor, passion, and psychological insight—the hallmarks of Hurston as a writer and champion of Black culture.

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Book descriptions taken from the NYPL catalog.

NYPL intern Dominique Pierre-Louis contributed to this post.

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