"These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths."
From Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurstion (1937)
Zora Neale Hurston (1891/1901 - 1960)
Zora was born... so
much is clear. Her birth date as well as her birthplace are
still subject of discussion resulting from the historical status of
Afro-Americans. They weren't considered full-term citizens and were
treated indifferently. At least we know that she was the fifth child
(out of eight) by preacher, farmer and carpenter John Hurston and his
wife Lucy Ann Potts. And again, it's unclear where she was born; at
least it is certain that she grew up in Eatonville, Florida in the
United States of America. Remarkably, Eatonville was the first
incorporated town and Zora's father became major of then 125
inhabitants. To Zora, this place became her utopia, a society free of
any racial restrictions. It also became the setting for many of her
novels presenting a community with only their inner limitations and
no racial harassment.
When Zora was thirteen years old her mother died, the family was split and the children were passed around the family. With little schooling, Zora worked as a household help and only with the aid of an employer did she have the chance to enter Morgan Academy in Baltimore in 1917. After graduation, Zora moved on to Howard University in 1918. Inspired by Alan Locke, professor of philosophy and an authority of Black culture, Zora decided to pursue a literary career. She published several short stories in various magazines taking her Eatonville background as a setting and became noted by poets as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, both active in the movement of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. When Zora decided to move on to Barnard College, a women's liberal arts college in Manhattan, being offered a scholarship in anthropology, she became quickly a well recognized member of the movement. Zora and her stories, a mixture of anthropological findings and oral stories of the rural South made her a major figure in the movement. Still her stories were received not only with praise for its vivid and original tone, its manifold metaphors and images but also criticised for being misrepresentative. The deep rooted wish of the members of the Harlem Renaissance to be recognized as full term citizens ran contrary to Zora's depiction of her characters as sovereign and original figures with their very own inner styles – no copies of the established, intellectual 'Negro' and no 'Nigger' that bows to any Jim Crow laws. Zora's characters are individual figures with all intrinsic contradictions combined with the folk-lore of their historical background: independent, individual and proud. But obviously, Zora's time had not yet come and she died in obscurity. Her literary rediscovery was made by Alice Walker who reread her novels and claimed her as her 'literary grandmother'. But also Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison took on Zora's style to continue telling the story of a bruised race.
Most of the quotations of the last four months were taken from her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God which is considered Zora's master work – actually it's the 'one novel' I would take with me on an island: her depiction of the main character's search of her womanhood is exemplary of any woman's search for her uniqueness interwoven with beautiful images and metaphors – just beautiful!
When Zora was thirteen years old her mother died, the family was split and the children were passed around the family. With little schooling, Zora worked as a household help and only with the aid of an employer did she have the chance to enter Morgan Academy in Baltimore in 1917. After graduation, Zora moved on to Howard University in 1918. Inspired by Alan Locke, professor of philosophy and an authority of Black culture, Zora decided to pursue a literary career. She published several short stories in various magazines taking her Eatonville background as a setting and became noted by poets as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, both active in the movement of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. When Zora decided to move on to Barnard College, a women's liberal arts college in Manhattan, being offered a scholarship in anthropology, she became quickly a well recognized member of the movement. Zora and her stories, a mixture of anthropological findings and oral stories of the rural South made her a major figure in the movement. Still her stories were received not only with praise for its vivid and original tone, its manifold metaphors and images but also criticised for being misrepresentative. The deep rooted wish of the members of the Harlem Renaissance to be recognized as full term citizens ran contrary to Zora's depiction of her characters as sovereign and original figures with their very own inner styles – no copies of the established, intellectual 'Negro' and no 'Nigger' that bows to any Jim Crow laws. Zora's characters are individual figures with all intrinsic contradictions combined with the folk-lore of their historical background: independent, individual and proud. But obviously, Zora's time had not yet come and she died in obscurity. Her literary rediscovery was made by Alice Walker who reread her novels and claimed her as her 'literary grandmother'. But also Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison took on Zora's style to continue telling the story of a bruised race.
Most of the quotations of the last four months were taken from her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God which is considered Zora's master work – actually it's the 'one novel' I would take with me on an island: her depiction of the main character's search of her womanhood is exemplary of any woman's search for her uniqueness interwoven with beautiful images and metaphors – just beautiful!
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