Christopher Scott

Zora Neale Hurston Biography (1903 - 1960)

Zora Neale Hurston was a famous writer during the Harlem Renaissance. . Writer, anthropologist, folklorist. She was born January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama. She studied at Howard University (1923–4), Barnard College (1928 BA), and did graduate work at Columbia University. She spent much of her life collecting folklore of the South (1927–31, 1938–9) and of other places such as Haiti (1937–8), Bermuda (1937–8), and Honduras (1946–8), publishing her findings in works including Mules and Men (1935).

Hurston lived in New York City and held a variety of jobs, such as teacher, librarian, and assistant to Fannie Hurst. She was associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, and would later influence such writers as Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison. She is best known for Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), a novel celebrating the lives of African-Americans. She also wrote a play called Spunk.

In 1950, Hurston moved to Florida and became increasingly conservative and alienated from her fellow African Americans, taking a stand even against school integration. She died 1960but she was not forgotten.During the 1970s her works were being rediscovered and recognized for their insights.