ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891- 1959)

By: Taylor Jenkins7/8th pd.

QUICK FACTS: Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga,

Alabama to John and Lucy Hurston but grew up in Eatonville, Florida.

She was the fifth of eight children in the Hurston household. In 1904, Zora’s mother died and Zora’s life took a drastic turn.

No longer getting along with her father and new step-mother, Zora took to the road where she eventually ended up in Harlem, New York.

Zora’s best-known work was published in 1937: Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Zora’s eventually popularity waned and her last book was published in 1948.

Zora went back to Florida and in 1960 died in poverty from a fatal stroke.

…FACTS: Zora became a member of a traveling theater at

the age of 16. In June of 1918, Zora graduated from Morgan Academy in Baltimore.

The following summer, Zora enrolled in Howard Prep School and later attended Howard University where she spent most of her time writing. Her first short story was published in May of 1921, “John Redding Goes to Sea”.

In 1925, Hurston headed to Harlem, New York where her writing career spawned. She won two second place prizes in drama and fiction and two Honorable Mentions for her other works at the first official awards banquet hosted by the Opportunity. She met other writers such as Langston Hughes and Fannie Hurst.

…FACTS: During the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Zora

published little, she wrote short stories and essays. It wasn’t until the mid thirties that Zora’s studies and

persistence finally paid off. Just nine weeks after Lippincott Company publisher asked Hurston if she had a novel ready for publishing, her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine was completed.

Hurston eventually made her way to Haiti and Jamaica where she wrote two more books, totaling five for the decade.

By the mid-1940s Hurston’s writing career was faltering and she was arrested and charged with molesting three 10 year-old boys. Eventually the charges were dropped, but not before they had taken a huge toll on both her health and emotional state.

On January 28, 1960 Zora Hurston suffered a fatal stroke.

3 ACCOMPLISHMENTS Their Eyes Were Watching God When independent

Janie Crawford returns home, her small African-American community begins to buzz with gossip about the outcome of her affair with a younger man, in a novel set in the 1930s South.

Jonah's Gourd Vine: A Novel John Buddy Pearson, a young Black man who becomes a popular pastor at Zion Hope, is unable to reconcile his good intentions and his natural instincts.

Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

The author recounts her experiences as an initiate into the voodoo practices of Haiti and Jamaica in the 1930s.

MOTIVATIONS/GOALS Things happening in the world, often motivated Hurston to write.

After World War II, Hurston began to write increasingly about politics.

Eatonville, Florida, where Zora spent most of her childhood, also inspired Hurston to write.

INFLUENTIAL CONTEMPORARY: Nella Larsen was an American novelist

and short story writer famously associated with the Harlem Renaissance era, which one writer has called "an era of extraordinary achievement in black American art and literature areas during the 1920's and 1930's.

Nella relates some of her own personal experiences, ideas, thoughts and beliefs into her novels, including Quicksand which was her first novel and appeared in 1928, and Passing, her second novel which appeared in 1929.

QUOTES BY ZORA HURSTON:

“Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.”

“It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.”

“It's no use of talking unless people understand what you say.”

“No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.”

WORKS CITED: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_206Vk7BcsTg/TP-

WOASIPnI/AAAAAAAACXY/UBgeybBXbn0/s1600/zpb3.jpg (picture of Zora Neale Hurston on first slide)

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/hurstonzoraneale/p/hurston_bio.htm (biography #1- about.com)

http://www.gradesaver.com/author/zora-neale-hurston/ (biography #2)

http://dpi.state.wi.us/rll/wrlbph/big_read.html (books by Zora Neale Hurston)

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/hurston.html (biography #3)

http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/olid/OL2218690M-M.jpg (Jonah’s Gourd Vine picture)

http://flavorwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/their-eyes-were.jpg (Their Eyes Were Watching God picture)

…WORKS CITED: http://user.cloudfront.goodinc.com/community/

etling/tell-my-horse.jpg (Tell my Horse picture) http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/z/

zora_neale_hurston_2.html (quotes) http://personal.centenary.edu/~jhendric/Am_Lit/

hurston_zora_neale2.jpg (picture- 8th slide) http://www.literaryhistory.com/20thC/

Public_Domain_Photos/Zora_Neale_Hurston.jpg (picture #2-8th slide)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston (biography #4)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/epstein2.html (biography #4)

http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/nlarsen.html (Nella Larsen)