Definition of Supreme:
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highest in rank or authority
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highest in degree or quality
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ultimate or final
The word ‘supreme’ carries a lot of authority and stakes a pretty incredible claim. While I’ve used supreme in my title for this blog in a half-joking way (and mainly because I think it makes an impressive title and really fits the image), in many ways I do believe Zora Neale Hurston is the supreme black, female author of the world to date.
As I’m gearing my Master’s thesis around her, now, renowned novel Their Eyes Were Watching God my opinion may be slightly biased, but I do hope to prove, or at least cause you, dear readers, to consider Hurston as a “supreme” author.
Zora Neale Hurston, born in 1891, knew how to make an impression. She is described as someone who could so charm people with her wit and stories that they would offer help in anyway she needed it. Not shy of taking up those offers, what Hurston needed most was patronage. However, the idea of writing on a patron’s penny left many of her fellow African-American writers sour.
She wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, a time rich with the celebration of black culture, but also, unfortunately, a time when America’s black citizenship felt that they were being asked to prove their humanity. They did so through the arts, and so, Hurston was seen by some Renaissance participants as a puppet to her Anglo-American patrons. As a result, she suffered discrimination from her contemporaries.
Today, that discrimination is firmly their loss. Hurston was brilliant. During her career of more than thirty years, Hurston published four novels, two folklore collections, an autobiography, short stories, and a number of essays, articles, and plays (Boyd).
However, what some people may not know is that, though she’d already begun writing, Hurston went to university for an anthropology degree and worked under Franz Boas, an anthropologist who was the first to really practice the idea of field work. One has to wonder and speculate if his influence and her anthropological roots are what inspired her to go to Florida, Jamaica, and Haiti in order to write both Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938). She also wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), her most well-known novel, in Haiti in a matter of weeks.
Eatonville, Fl.–the small town wherein much of the novel takes place–mirrors Hurston’s own childhood, as well. Though born in Alabama, Hurston’s family moved to Eatonville, Florida when Hurston was still quite young.
Established in 1887, the small community was the nation’s first incorporated black township. Hurston described it as, “a city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools, and no jailhouse” (qtd. in Boyd).
Hurston’s personal experience with living in an incorporated black township/community certainly gives credence and authority to her novel’s reality, just as her field time in Florida, Jamaica, and Haiti lend a more authentic tone to her folklore collections.
[There is a quant (albeit dated, in some ways) documentary on Hurston’s life which I saw part of some years ago on PBS. I’ve included a short youtube clip of the documentary, but you should also be able to purchase the full version from baybottomnews.com if you’re just really inspired to get to know more about her.]
Beyond the credentials I’ve touched on, a webpage dedicated to Hurston’s memory and biography provides a wonderful timeline account of her life and work. Please spend some time browsing the website if you’d like more information.
As Hurston’s work was not popularised during her lifetime, partly due to the discrimination of her fellow Renaissance writers, at the time of her death she was living in poverty. She was laid in an unmarked grave, sadly, as she left no money for a headstone.
Fortunately, some years later–in 1973–Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, found her grave and commissioned a stone that reads “Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South.”
The epitaph, to me speaks to the quality of her work; especially as it was commissioned by another black, female author whom some would argue eclipsed Hurston. However, since its reissue in paperback form in 1978, Their Eyes Were Watching God has become arguably the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the cannon of African-American literature (Official Website of Zora Neale Hurston).
Her work has proved enduring, relevant, and powerful. Her command of oral tradition translated to written word is magnificent; her use of symbolism absolutely masterful… I feel indebted to Walker for her “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston,” an essay which really sparked the revival Hurston’s work, but, for me, Hurston will forever be the ultimate, the Supreme, African-American author.
Works Cited:
Boyd, Valerie. “About Zora Neale Hurston.” Zora Neale Hurston: The Official Website of Zora Neale Hurston, 2015, http://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/index.html. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Mirriam-Webster. Dictionary. 2017. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supreme. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Zora Neale Hurston. The Official Website of Zora Neale Hurston. 2015, http://www.zoranealehurston.com. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Others N' Me: Literary Research 
