Zora Neale Hurston was an African American writer who lived mainly during the 1900s. She wrote everything from novels to short stories, contributing to the dynamic African American literary scene. She published four novels and over fifty short stories, plays, and essays, but her most known work is Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was published in 1937. Hurston documented the racial struggles of colored people in the American South through her works, and recorded some of her research on Haitian voodoo magic.
Hurston started off her writing career with short stories, writing very many of them. During the Harlem Renaissance, when she lived in New York and was a central figure to the movement, she published short stories that were satirically dealing with racial division and African American life in a segregated world. With her background in anthropological research and ethnographic experience, Hurston was able to incorporate much more than simply the experiences of just herself and her peers. Though her novels took a little longer to gain the acclamation that they rightfully deserve, Hurston’s short stories were received and praised during her lifetime and compiled into many anthologies.
Despite her many accomplishments, Hurston struggled financially and was often overlooked by literary critics and the mainstream literary establishment during her lifetime. However, her work has since been rediscovered and celebrated as an important contribution to American literature and anthropology. Today, Zora Neale Hurston is considered one of the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance and her work continues to be widely read and studied.
