For more information on the books listed below, subscribe to HPL's seasonal Books on the Bayou newsletter.
To view the most recent issue, click here.
The Complete Stories (1995)
A collection of short stories, most of which appeared in literary magazines during the author's lifetime, along with previously unpublished works, spans the career of one of the century's foremost Black authors.
Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
A moving presentation in her own words of the life of an African-American woman who rose from poverty to become an author whose work is read the world over is accompanied by an inspiring foreword by acclaimed poet Maya Angelou.
Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States (2001)
A book of folktales about love, slavery, faith, family, race, and community, collected in the late 1920s, represents a large part of the author's literary legacy and details African American life in the rural South.
I Love Myself When I Am Laughing…and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader, edited by Alice Walker (1979)
The most prolific African-American woman author from 1920 to 1950, Hurston was praised for her writing and condemned for her independence, arrogance, and audaciousness. This unique anthology, with 14 superb examples of her fiction, journalism, folklore, and autobiography, rightfully establishes her as the intellectual and spiritual leader of the next generation of black writers.
Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
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.
Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)
Moses becomes the leader of his people in order to rescue them from bondage, in this allegorical retelling of the story of Moses.
The Sanctified Church (1981)
Along with preserving the customs, music, speech and humor of rural Black America, The Sanctified Church introduces us to such figures as Mother Catherine, matriarchal founder of a highly personal Voodoo Christian sect; Uncle Monday, healer, conjurer and powerful herb doctor; and High John de Conquer, the trickster/shaman figure of freedom and laughter still honored in parts of rural Black America today.
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and America (1990)
The author recounts her experiences as an initiate into the voodoo practices of Haiti and Jamaica in the 1930s.
Harold Bloom, Zora Neale Hurston (2003)
Expert literary analyst Harold Bloom provides a biographical and critical review of one of the world's most important writers.
Valerie Boyd, Wrapped in Rainbows (2003)
Boyd traces the career of the influential African-American writer, citing the historical backdrop of her life and work while considering her relationships with and influences on top literary, intellectual, and artistic figures.
Robert E. Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography (1977)
Zora Neale Hurston - novelist, folklorist, anthropologist, and child of the rural black South - transformed each hour of her life into something bubbling, exuberant, and brimming with her joy in just being. Robert Hemenway captures the effervescence of this daughter of the Harlem Renaissance in his brilliant and original literary biography.
Lucy Anne Hurston, Speak, So You Can Speak Again (2004)
Hurston brings the literature and personality of her aunt, Zora Neale Hurston, beautifully to life in this brief biography and narrative, accompanied by reproduced artifacts and mementoes.
Mary E. Lyons, Sorrows Kitchen: The Life and Folklore of Zora Neale Hurston (1990)
Lyons describes the life and work of the prolific black author who wrote stories, plays, essays, and articles, recorded black folklore, and was involved in the Harlem Renaissance.
Deborah G. Plant, Every Tub Must Sit on Its Own Bottom: The Philosophy and Politics of Zora Neale Hurston (1995)
In a ground-breaking study of Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah Plant takes issue with current notions of Hurston as a feminist and earlier impressions of her as an intellectual lightweight who disregarded serious issues of race in American culture.