Zora Neale Hurston : Novels and Stories

When she died in obscurity in 1960, all her books were out of print. Now, Zora Neale Hurston is recognized as one of the most important and influential modern American writers. This volume, with its companion, “Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings,” brings together for the first time all of Hurston’s best works in one authoritative set. It features the acclaimed 1937 novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” a lyrical masterpiece about a woman’s struggle for love and independence. “Jonah’s Gourd Vine,” based on the story of Hurston’s parents, details the rise and fall of a preacher torn between spirit and flesh. “Moses, Man of the Mountain” is a high-spirited retelling of the Exodus story in black vernacular. “Seraph on the Suwanee” portrays the passionate clash between a poor southern “cracker” and her willful husband. A selection of short stories further displays Hurston’s unique fusion of folk traditions and literary modernism-comic, ironic, and soaringly poetic.