Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston first married Herbert Sheen, whom she divorced in 1931. Her second marriage was to Albert Prince, a man 25 years her junior, in 1939. This marriage lasted only seven months before ending.

In 1948, this talented anthropologist was falsely accused of molesting a ten-year-old boy. However, she was acquitted later.

Early in 1959, she suffered a stroke, and entered the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. She suffered from hypertensive heart disease and breathed her last in the same institution on January 28, 1960.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, to John Hurston and Lucy Potts Hurston. She was their fifth child, and had she seven siblings.

She was brought up entirely in Eatonville in Florida. When her mother died in 1904, her happy childhood came to a hurried end, and her father remarried.

She left home and took up basic jobs and strived to complete her schooling. She reached Baltimore in 1917, and studied in Morgan Academy to finish her high school education.

In 1918, Zora Neale Hurston started attending Howard University in Washington D.C and obtained an associate degree in 1920.

She came out with her very first story ‘John Redding Goes to Sea’ in the magazine of the campus literary society, in 1921.

In December 1924, she published a short story titled, ’Drenched in Light’ in the magazine, ‘Opportunity’.

Between 1925 and 1927, she studied anthropology with Franz Boas in Barnard College.

With Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman, she came up with a literary magazine called ‘Fire!!’ in 1926. However, they did not publish more than one issue.

Hurston wrote a number of short stories and articles for many magazines like ‘Opportunity’ and ‘The Negro Digest’. In February 1927, she collected folklore by travelling to Florida. She received a Bachelor of Anthropology degree from Barnard, the same year.

In 1935, this accomplished writer published ‘Mules and Men’ which was a collection of African American folk tales. It is regarded as one of the best works on folklore and culture of the blacks.

In September 1937, Zora Neale Hurston published her greatest work ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’. Though it was not received well in the beginning, the novel was subsequently appreciated in the 1970s and 1980s. It has been included in the list of 100 best English-language novels published since 1923, by the magazine, ‘Time’.

She also came out with an autobiography titled ‘Dust Tracks on a Road’ in 1942, which was much appreciated for its literary content by critics.