"Supported by extensive archival research, rich photographic illustrations, and a nuanced explication of key and lesser-known works in Zora Neale Hurston’s oeuvre, this new biography contextualizes a unique and penetrating voice that never fell silent with the passage of time. Hopson meticulously maps the vexed and circuitous routes of discrimination, humiliation, and empire along which Hurston traveled to capture and preserve the rhythms of a Black vernacular landscape that formed the central motif of her craft and represented her greatest love."
★ 05/01/2024
In the latest in the University of Chicago "Critical Lives" series, poet and literary scholar Hopson (Fragile) concisely tells the story of Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), from her childhood in Florida to her time as the first Black student at Barnard College and her work as an anthropologist and author. Part biography, part literary criticism, the work is an excellent introduction to Hurston and her writings. The chapters highlighting her works create an accessible interpretation of her ideas and feature other literary critics expertly. Hopson writes about the difficult times that Hurston lived through and how those experiences must have affected her, along with how they are reflected in her writings. She makes the distinction that Hurston was "living womanism long before Alice Walker coined the term." The epilogue defends Hurston from criticisms levelled against her throughout her career, such as catering to wealthy white patrons. Hopson argues that her works are as relevant as ever: "Hurston understood most readily that U.S. society has never been amenable to Black life. Black women's lives, even less so." VERDICT An excellent mix of biography and literary criticism, this book is recommended for both academic and public libraries.—Julie Feighery
2024-04-02
A concise exploration of the life and work of the acclaimed writer, anthropologist, and folklorist.
In the latest in the Critical Lives series, Hopson, a professor of English and African American studies, argues that Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) used her “firm foundation of self-knowledge and self-worth” to “build herself up from the frontier that was Eatonville, Florida, where she grew up, and from out of the squalor in which she lived after her mother died in 1904.” The author’s upbringing in all Black Eatonville fostered the bright girl’s curiosity and daydreaming. When she was 13, her father sent her to a Christian school in Jacksonville, after which she continued her education at Howard. At 37, with financial help from friends, Hurston graduated from Barnard College, its first Black student. She was mentored in anthropology by Franz Boas, who sent her to Eatonville to research Black culture; then she moved to New York City and “quickly transitioned…to an award-winning Black woman intellectual” amid the Harlem Renaissance. Her 1926 play, Color Struck, a “pioneering literary work,” won second place in drama from Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. In 1928, she “underwent a voodoo conversion” in New Orleans, later writing her “manifesto of selfhood and identity,” “How It Feels To Be Colored Me.” In 1931, Hurston wrote the posthumously published Barracoon, which deals with the slave trade, and two years later, her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine. In 1935, she published her important folklore collection, Mules and Men, with Boas’ introduction, and her highly influential novel Their Eyes Were Watching God came out the next year. After moving to California, she wrote a memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, which Hopson describes as “an invaluable work of self-fashioning and self-promotion.” Though well researched, the narrative suffers from patches of dry, choppy prose.
A serviceable introduction for general readers.
