Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters - Softcover

Whatever happened to Zora Neale Hurston? In the 1930s her stories, novels, folklore studies, and plays were all over the bestseller lists. By the '60s she was forgotten--a reversal of fortune captured in the extraordinary collection Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.

Why did Hurston's star fade? Simple weariness, her correspondence suggests. She was happier, it seems, tilling her Florida garden than revealing her soul to the world. She was also not shy of crossing swords with the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes, and in a time of growing militancy and the awakening civil rights movement Hurston became increasingly conservative, developing political stances that, editor Kaplan writes, "have often baffled her admirers." Hurston developed a pen-stilling, probably ungrounded suspicion that anything she wrote would be stolen by other writers, who would "then hate me for being alive to make their pretensions out a lie. And then take all kinds of steps to head me off."

Having enjoyed early fame, Hurston died alone and in poverty. This well-assembled and very welcome book traces her sad path, and it adds much to our understanding of the once-neglected writer. --Gregory McNamee

“An astonishingly brilliant artist . . . In these letters we encounter Zora Neale Hurston as if for the first time.” --Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"Smart, sparkling lettters . . . a fascinating collection" --O, The Oprah Magazine

“Kaplan has made the letters remarkably accessible” --The New York Times

“Not merely a collection of letters but a comprehensive introduction to an important American writer” --Booklist

“Captures the myriad facets of Hurston’s genius, not least as it radiated in the legendary life she crafted from humble beginnings.” --The Washington Post

“This is a wonderful addition to what we need to understand about a spirited, extraordinary life.” –Alice Walker

“[Hurston’s] letters have a freshness, humor and immediacy that make you forget how long ago they were written” –Quarterly Black Review

“The letters in Ms. Kaplan’s collection tell a life story of exceptional interest.” –The Wall Street Journal

“Hurston’s reputation–and her place in the canon of truly great writers–only deepens as we encounter the complex and compelling intelligence of this astonishingly brilliant artist. In these letters, we encounter Zora Neale Hurston as if for the first time.” –Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University

“ [An] epic collection . . . .The arrival of these letters is like a beacon cast on Hurston’s life.” –Orlando Sentinel

“From her letters emerges an . . . articulate but qualitatively different voice, or better yet, chorus of voices, compounding the contradictions of an undeniably courageous life. We can finally see her . . . served up raw.” –Africana.com

“Hurston’s letters reveal an energetic writer . . . . Beautifully executed.” –Publishers Weekly

“Sublime and intimate. . . . An intriguing installment in the study of Hurston’s work and life.” –Upscale

“The Hurston we revered before this book was only an illusion. Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters gives us a flesh and blood Hurston with sharp edges and dark corners and endless, enchanting layers.” –Emily Bernard, author of Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964