Writer: Zora Neale Hurston

Google keeps showing me these different articles, and today it had been Zora Neale Hurston. I read her autobiography before Their Eyes Were Watching God. I am hooked on her.

Book Riot's ZORA NEALE HURSTON: WRITER, FOLKLORIST, ANTHROPOLOGIST, ACTIVIST by Caitlin Hobbs provides a succinct biography.

The Tampa Bay Times review of Hurston's short collection, 'Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick,' must be from 2020.

The book’s introduction, by editor Genevieve West, notes that Hurston explained its title phrase, “hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick,” in several ways, including “making a way out of no way” — a nod to her fondness for subversion. One of her subversions of norms for fiction a century ago is her almost complete focus on black characters. White people are all but absent in this world, and when they do show up momentarily, they’re generally clueless. Hurston subverts white attitudes toward black people by simply ignoring them.

The Guardian reviews this collection here. 

How amazing that she has a new collection of stories can only be understood if you read the biographical materials.

Lastly, Literariness.org has Analysis of Zora Neale Hurston’s Stories:

...One criticism often leveled at Hurston was that she frequently masqueraded folklore as fiction, or, in other cases, imposed folklore on the fictive narrative. Whatever the merits of such criticism may be, Hurston’s short stories abound with an energy and zest for life that Hurston considered instructive for her readers.

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By far the most important aspect of “John Redding Goes to Sea” is its theme that people must be free to develop and pursue their own dreams, which is a recurring theme in the Hurston canon. John Redding is deprived of self-expression and self-determination because the wishes and interpretations of others are imposed upon him. Hurston clearly has no sympathy with those who would deprive another of freedom and independence; indeed, she would adamantly oppose all such restrictive efforts throughout her career as a writer and folklorist.

What is not to like about duch a writer?

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1/7/21