They are most reluctant at times to reveal that which the soul lives by. (Hurston was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which wasn’t the “black backside” of a white town, she once observed, but a place wholly inhabited and run by black people - her father was a three-term mayor.) She proved adept at the task, but, as she noted in her collection of folklore, Mules and Men, the job wasn’t always straightforward: “The best source is where there are the least outside influences and these people, usually underprivileged, are the shyest. He sent his student back south to interview people of African descent. Before she turned to writing novels, she’d trained as a cultural anthropologist at Barnard under the famed father of the field, Franz Boas. Six years earlier, Hurston had tried to publish another book in dialect, this one a work of nonfiction called Barracoon. The hater-in-chief was no less than Richard Wright, who recoiled as much at the book’s depiction of lush female sexuality and (supposedly) apolitical themes as its use of black dialect, “the minstrel technique that makes the ‘white folks’ laugh.” It’s been canonized by Harold Bloom - even credited for inspiring the tableau in Lemonade where Beyoncé and a clutch of other women regally occupy a wooden porch - but Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel was eviscerated by critics when it was published in 1937.

Eatonville, Florida meets Eastonville D.C.Their Eyes Were Watching God is required reading in high schools and colleges and cited as a formative influence by Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.

Gearing up for the annual Zora Festivals!.

Harper Perennial and the Zora Neale Hurston Trust sign a new exclusive deal.

2012 Zora Neale Hurston Award winner announced!.

Wreckage of Last Known Slave Ship in U.S.

Descendants’ Stories of the Clotilda Slave Ship Drew Doubts.

A Work by Zora Neale Hurston Will Finally Be Published.

Barracoon and Slave Old Man Approach the Trauma of Slavery With Care and Kinship.

Event: Between the Lines: Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” May 8th 2018.

Barracoon Tells The Story Of The Last Slave In First Person.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Long-Unpublished Barracoon Finds Its Place After Decades of Delay.

Widespread coverage of the release of Barracoon.

The Last Slave (with excerpt of Barracoon).

“You Don’t Know Us Negroes” adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston, who was a tireless crusader in all her writing, and ahead of her time.

Zora neale hurston barracoon