Zora Neale Hurston ( Alabama , January 7, 1891 – Florida , January 28 , 1960 ) was one of the first black writers in the United States . She is considered one of the great anthropologists and folklorists of the 20th century , and one of the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance.
Her literary work, widely recognized today, was not appreciated during her lifetime, and she died in poverty. Her best-known work is Their eyes were watching God ( 1937).
Biographical summary
Birth and youth
Zora Neile Hurston in her youth
For many years it was believed that Zora Neile Hurston was born in Eatonville (state of Florida), a place populated by African Americans. But it was discovered in 1990 that she was born in Notasulga (state of Alabama), and at the age of three she moved to Eatonville, the place that would become her main source of inspiration.
However, as there is not enough information to prove the veracity of her birth, it remains a supposition to this day. Her father, John Hurston , was a Baptist preacher who would become mayor of Eatonville. About her mother, Lucy Ann Potts Hurston , the only thing known for certain is that she had been a schoolteacher and that she died when Zora was 13 years old; however, her presence is recurrent in Zora’s work in everything related to folklore and tradition.
After her mother’s death, she was sent to a private school in Jacksonville and lived with other relatives, being rejected by her father and stepmother; according to her own words, she was “passed around like a penny” [1]
Upon coming of age, she worked as a housemaid, a waitress, and traveled around the state of Florida. Despite her poor education, she was a great reader. At age 26 ( 1917 ) she entered the Morgan Academy in Baltimore , although she filled in her birth date as 1901. Between 1919 and 1924 she enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. , where she found inspiration in her philosophy professor, the authority on African-American culture Alain Locke, to pursue a literary career.
She was married to Herbert Sheen from 1927 to 1931, and to Albert Price from 1939 to 1940.
His literary and folkloric work
Novel His eyes were looking at God
She published her first story, John Redding Goes to Sea , in 1921 in the University Magazine. In the following years, several of her stories appeared in various magazines. In 1924, she was forced to abandon her studies due to her inability to finance her studies. However, her published stories attracted the attention of figures who would later shape the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, with whom she would later collaborate on the magazine.
In 1925 she was awarded a scholarship to study anthropology at Barnard College , an affiliate of Columbia University ( New York ), thanks to the anthropologist Annie Nathan Meyer . There she worked with the well-known anthropologist Franz Boas and graduated in 1928 .
Living in Harlem (Manhattan) , she became a member of the Renaissance and devoted herself to the anthropological and folkloric study of her birthplace: Eatonville; fascinated by its utopian nature: the songs, stories, traditions and proverbs of popular wisdom.
He collected data on the folklore of the Deep South, and set out to explore the most unknown regions of Florida, Mississippi , and Louisiana , which he would later collect in his collections of novels and stories, such as Mules and Men (1935), Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934), and Moses: Man of the Mountain ( 1939 ).
In 1936 , Zora was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the practice of Obeah (Voodoo, Santeria) in the English Caribbean. She traveled to Jamaica and Haiti , where she wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, finding in this rural folklore environment the inspiration and energy to recover from a failed relationship with a younger man, whom she left behind to continue her research.
She lived in the Caribbean for two years and collected information on customs and superstitions, recordings of songs, jokes, games and photographs of dances, which appeared in her second compilation of folklore, Tell My Horse ( 1938 ). The study of the practice of Voodoo and Judo (hoodoo) in the English Caribbean becomes much more, in Zora’s more expert hand. She treats Voodoo as a serious religious practice, originating in Africa, mixed with Christianity, something that was not done at that time.
In both her folklore collections and her novels and stories, Zora always makes an effort to capture the way her characters speak, their dialects, which makes them difficult to read, but at the same time gives her texts the “flavor of reality” that is lacking in some of her contemporaries. Over the years, she would give preference to describing her characters through their actions, instead of opting for descriptions made by the narrator or other characters.
On the other hand, the themes that Zora’s work usually deals with are more intimate, since it deals with the relationships between members of an African-American community rather than with the relationships between black and white men. The text of Tell My Horse is an example of the mixture of styles that characterizes her texts: anthropology and fiction , political criticism , and photography , etc.
Death
Zora Neale Hurston died of a heart attack in Fort Pierce, Florida, on January 28, 1960, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Her figure was revived in the 1970s by a generation of black women writers, who promoted the publication of new writings or the reissue of old ones.
Contribution to the Harlem Renaissance
In Harlem, Zora Neale Hurston creates Fire! magazine with Langston Hughes and Wallace Stevens , which only publishes one issue. Living in New York, Zora is recognized not only for her literary work, but also for her political thinking and her extravagant personality (for the time).
The Harlem Renaissance was largely promoted by donations from white patrons, which is one of the most common criticisms of the movement. Zora Neale Hurston was no different, and funding from philanthropic organizations as well as patronage from white publishers and scholars enabled her to pursue her fiction and anthropological work.
One of the most interesting features of the Harlem Renaissance’s contribution to American literature is that its representation of the “black man” was no longer that of a rebellious victim of slavery who seeks the pity of his readers. For the Harlem writers, most of them being the first generation born free, the idea was to portray a “new Negro,” one proud of his race and his roots – in short, to alter the way the black man saw himself.
In Zora’s case, this vision is extended to include women as well; in many of her stories, such as Sweat, the woman is strong and independent (perhaps a reflection of her mother?) attitudes that are threatened by a male figure who does not appreciate them. [2]
Zora was a controversial figure both within and outside the Harlem Renaissance. Her political views were in stark contrast to those of many of her Harlem contemporaries, as she rejected communism and declared herself a Republican .
This led to two well-defined currents within the Renaissance: the pro-communist one led by Langston Hughes and the more conservative one, led by Zora, which was against the integration of the black community into the white one, which was demonstrated by making political propaganda for Robert Taft in the presidential elections of 1952 .
One good reason for her taking this position was the consequences she saw in educational integration, as she believed that in this way the African-American cultural tradition would be lost. This can be seen in her criticism of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Brown v. Board of Education.
Rediscovery of his literary work
Zora N. Hurston’s work remained unknown until the 1970s. One possible reason is the depiction of African-American dialect she used in her characters’ dialogue. For some critics at the time, this writing was a caricature of the illiteracy of many African-Americans. However, today it is seen as a great stylistic work.
Another reason is the opposition of his Renaissance contemporaries, especially Richard Wright , who saw in his later works an abandonment of Renaissance intentions, because there was “no criticism, no themes, no thought.”
Her conservatism also helped hinder the dissemination of her works. In the 1930s and 1940s, the most prolific African-American author was Richard Wright, whose work was explicitly political. Wright was disenchanted with communism, and was more obvious in expressing his thoughts on the struggle for respect and economic equality for the African-American community. Another popular author was Ralph Ellison , who aligned himself more with Wright’s vision. Zora’s work did not fit into this spectrum.
By publishing her ambitious novel Seraph on the Suwanee in 1948 , Zora again pushed the boundaries of African-American writing at the time by writing in an apolitical manner. This is a work about impoverished whites making their way in Florida industry, with characters of color playing secondary roles. A daring work, since neither African-American nor white intellectuals could accept the idea of a black author speaking through white characters.
The harsh criticism that this work received made it Zora’s last work before she retired to a small town in Florida for the rest of her life. As she stated, “the text is a testament to her self-definition both as an African-American writer and as a regionalist.” On the other hand, in academic circles, anthropologists often categorized her works as fiction, and did not add them to lists of anthropological texts.
In 1973, Alice Walker and scholar Charlotte Hunt went to Florida to find and mark her grave. In 1975, Alice Walker published an article called In Search of Zora Neale Hurston in Ms. Magazine . This article revived public interest in Zora’s work and opened the door for authors such as Toni Morrison , Maya Angelou , and Alice Walker herself to write about the experiences of African-American women.