Go Gator And Muddy The Water »

Zora Neale Hurston will forever be remembered as one of the greatest writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is widely considered to be a classic, as it recounts the spiritual journey of a black southern woman in inventive and beautiful detail. An anthropologist, essayist, theatrical producer, and novelist, Hurston was a renaissance woman in the truest sense.

Researching a work on the Florida Federal Writers' Project, Pamela Bordelon discovered writings in the collection that were unmistakably from the hand of Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God and one of the leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Most of these works are not well known. All of Hurston's novels draw upon her deep interest in folklore, particularly from Florida, her home state. Here we see the roots of that work, from the captivating folktale of the monstrous alligator living in a local lake to her recording of folk songs and her work on children's games and the black church. Of great interest are the transcriptions of a rare interview with Hurston singing gambling and work songs and telling how she learned them.

Book Magazine

...[A]n archivist's dream: a complete collection of Hurston's writings for the Florida Federal Writers' Project in the late 1930s...