Zora Neale Hurston

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Zora Neale Hurston, photograph by Carl Van Vechten , April 3, 1938

Zora Neale Hurston (born January 7, 1891 in Notasulga , Alabama , † January 28, 1960 in Fort Pierce , Florida ) was an American writer and folklorist . She is considered one of the leading players in the Harlem Renaissance movement .

Life

Zora Hurston came from a traditional African-American community and grew up in Eatonville, Florida . Her mother died when she was nine years old. She left home at fourteen. From 1918 to 1920 she attended Howard University in Washington, DC , where she became one of the first members of the "Zeta Phi Beta" Association.

In 1925 she came to New York . She met Harlem Renaissance writers such as Langston Hughes , frequented the Georgia Douglas Johnson literary salon and published her first essays and short stories, including a play and a short story in the only issue of Fire !! Magazine. Thanks to a scholarship, she was able to study anthropology at Barnard College from autumn 1925 . Her teachers were Ruth Benedict and Gladys Reichard and Franz Boas at Columbia University . She also worked with Melville J. Herskovits .

From 1927 onwards she collected folklore in the southern states for four years , initially with little success, first in Florida, also in her hometown of Eatonville and in Alabama . In doing so, she repeatedly put herself in mortal danger, for example during her field research in workers' and prison camps. She received her BA from Barnard in 1928 . From August to December 1928 she worked with hoodoo priests in New Orleans , Louisiana . In early 1930 she collected material in the Bahamas .

Hurston collected the stories, songs, dances and prayers of the black population and presented them, among other things. in a production on Broadway. After the publication of Mules and Men , the Guggenheim Foundation gave her a research assignment that took her to Jamaica and Haiti in the Caribbean in 1936 . In 1938 and 1839 she worked for the US employment program Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Florida.

Zora Neale Hurston decided against anthropology and in favor of writing. In the 1930s she was one of the most important authors of African American literature . In her works she processed her experiences and memories of the rural life of blacks in America at the turn of the century.

In the 1950s it had left its literary climax far behind. An important book project was rejected by the publisher. She spent her final years sick and in poverty. In 1959 she had a stroke and had to apply for social assistance. She was admitted to a care home and soon succumbed to a heart condition. She was buried in an anonymous grave at Fort Pierce's Garden of Heavenly Rest Cemetery.

Rediscovery and aftermath

The writer Alice Walker (known for the epistolary novel The Color Purple ) tracked down Hurston's grave in 1973 and initiated the rediscovery of person and work with the article In Search of Zora Neale Hurston in the feminist magazine Ms. since March 1975. In addition to new and first editions of her books, the play Polk County premiered in 2002 . Hurston's Fort Pierce home has been a listed building since 1991. Zora Neale Hurston was included in the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa .

Your contemporary witness report Barracoon, published posthumously in 2018. The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” about the story of the slave Cudjoe Lewis became a bestseller.

Work (selection)

  • Sweat. 1926
  • How It Feels to Be Colored Me. 1928
  • The Gilded Six-Bits. 1933
  • Jonah's Gourd Vine. 1934, novel
  • Mules and Men 1935, experiences of the first research trip
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937, Roman (Eng. And their eyes looked God. Ex. Barbara Henninges . Zurich 1993; currently under ISBN 3-250-10205-9 ; new translation under the title: Before their eyes they saw God. Ex. Hans-Ulrich Möhring, edition five, Graefelfing 2011, ISBN 978-3-942374-12-5 )
  • Tell my horse. 1938, experiences of the research trip to the Caribbean
  • Moses, Man of the Mountain. 1939, novel
  • Dust Tracks on a Road. 1942, autobiography (German: I like myself when I laugh. Autobiography. Zurich 2000; currently under ISBN 3-499-23173-5 )
  • Seraph on the Suwanee. 1948, novel
  • Barracoon. The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo'. (published 2018, English; German Barracoon. The story of the last American slave . Ex. Hans-Ulrich Möhring, Penguin 2020, ISBN 978-3-328-60130-2 )

In 1995 the Library of America series published 75 Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings. edited by Cheryl A. Wall. The 1001 page anthology contains Mules and Men , Tell My Horse , Dust Tracks on a Road , as well as a selection of various articles by Zora Neale Hurston.

literature

  • Robert E. Hemenway, with a foreword by Alice Walker , Zora Neale Hurston. A Literary Biography. University of Illinois Press, 1977. Camden Press reprinted, 1986.
  • Valerie Boyd: Wrapped in Rainbows. The Life of Zora Neale Hurston . Virago, London 2003, 527 pp., ISBN 1-86049-856-6
  • Ayana I. Karanja: Zora Neale Hurston, The breath of her voice . African-American literary investigations (Vol. 1). Lang, New York, Washington / Baltimore, Boston, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna and Canterbury 1999
  • Rose Parkman Davis: Zora Neale Hurston. An annotated bibliography and reference guide . Bibliographies and indexes in Afro-American and African studies (Vol. 34). Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut et al. 1997, 210 (XII) S., ISBN 0-313-30387-8
  • Janet Carter-Sigglow: Making her way with thunder. A reappraisal of Zora Neale Hurston's narrative art . Aachen British and American studies (Vol. 4). Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris and Vienna 1994, 160 (XII) S., ISBN 3-631-47284-6
  • Diana Miles: Women, Violence, & Testimony in the Works of Zora Neale Hurston . African-American literature and culture (Vol. 3). Lang, New York, Washington / Baltimore, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna and Oxford 2003
  • Nancy Kuhl: Intimate Circles. American Women in the Arts. Catalog book with essays. Yale University Press, New Haven 2007 ISBN 0-300-13402-9 (book highlighting Hurston; in English)

Web links

Commons : Zora Neale Hurston  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert E. Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston. 1977
  2. ↑ Deutschlandfunk: "The dream is the truth - a long night over ... Zora Neale Hurston" , accessed on July 28, 2013.
  3. ↑ Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks Heritage Trail Marker # 4 | Fort Pierce, FL - Official Website. Retrieved April 28, 2020 .
  4. ↑ National Historic Landmarks Program (NHL)
personal data
SURNAME Hurston, Zora Neale
SHORT DESCRIPTION American writer and anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Notasulga , Alabama
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1960
Place of death Fort Pierce , Florida