At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.

Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either: It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber

From AudioFile
Nora Zeale Hurston's notable story comes to life through Ruby Dee's fine interpretation. The story of Janie Crawford, her strength and gentleness, was written to be heard. Dee's deep, melodic tones enliven Hurston's evocative prose and powerful images. The colorful characters, Janie's three husbands, Mr. Killicks, Mayor Starks and Tea Cake, her friend Phoeby, and so many others emerge through Dee's strong command of dialogue and her mastery of dialect. She conveys Hurston's sense of drama and spiritual strength in a dynamic program. For readers who know Hurston's work, this program will be a joy, for those who are lucky and wise enough to discover her here, it will be an exceptional experience. R.F.W. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

June Jordon, Black World
"The prototypical Black novel of affirmation; it is the most successful, convincing, and exemplary novel of Blacklove that we have. Period."

Saturday Review
"Their Eyes belongs in the same categorywith that of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingwayof enduring American literature."

Alice WalkerA
"There is no book more important to me than this one."

Book Description
Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930's, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.This poetic, graceful love story, rooted in Black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, celebrates boldly and brilliantly African-American culture and heritage. And in a powerful, mesmerizing narrative, it pays quiet tribute to a Black woman, who, though constricted by the times, still demanded to be heard.Originally published in 1937 and long out of print, the book was reissued in 1975 and nearly three decades later, Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered a seminal novel in American fiction.

Download Description
"E-BOOK EXTRA: Janie's Great Journey: A Reading Group Guide; PLUS: The Comphrehensive Edition: This special e-book is the only edition to include all three essays by Edwidge Danticat, Mary Helen Washington, and Henry Louis Gates.Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a Black woman in the '30s. Zora Neale Hurston's classic 1937 novel follows Janie's quest for identity -- a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life's joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace. "There is no book more important to me than this one." --Alice Walker "Their Eyes belongs in the same category with [the works of] William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, that of enduring American literature." --Saturday ReviewFair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots."

About the Author
In her award-winning autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Zora Neale Hurston claimed to have been born in Eatonville, Florida, in 1901. She was, in fact, born in Notasulga, Alabama, on January 7, 1891, the fifth child of John Hurston (farmer, carpenter, and Baptist preacher) and Lucy Ann Potts (school teacher). The author of numerous books, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Mule sand Men, and Moses, Man of the Mountain,Hurston had achieved fame and sparked controversy as a novelist, anthropologist, outspoken essayist, lecturer, and theatrical producer during her sixty-nine years. Hurston's finest work of fiction appeared at a time when artistic and political statements -- whether single sentences or book-length fictions -- were peculiarly conflated. Many works of fiction were informed by purely political motives; political pronouncements frequently appeared in polished literary prose. Hurston's own political statements, relating to racial issues or addressing national politics, did not ingratiate her with her black male contemporaries. The end result was that Their Eyes Were Watching God went out of print not long after its first appearance and remained out of print for nearly thirty years.Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has been one among many to ask: "How could the recipient of two Guggenheims and the author of four novels, a dozen short stories, two musicals, two books on black mythology, dozens of essays, and a prize winning autobiography virtually 'disappear' from her readership for three full decades?"That question remains unanswered. The fact remains that every one of Hurston's books went quickly out of print; and it was only through the determined efforts, in the 1970s, of Alice Walker, Robert Hemenway (Hurston's biographer), Toni Cade Bambara, and other writers and scholars that all of her books are now back in print and that she has taken her rightful place in the pantheon of American authors.In 1973, Walker, distressed that Hurston's writings had been all but forgotten, found Hurston's grave in the Garden of Heavenly Rest and installed a gravemarker. "After loving and teaching her work for a number of years," Walker later reported, "I could not bear that she did not have a known grave." The gravemarker now bears the words that Walker had inscribed there: ZORA NEALE HURSTON
GENIUS OF THE SOUTH
NOVELIST FOLKLORIST ANTHROPOLOGIST
(1891-1960)In Brief
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage are unparalleled. She Is the author of many books, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, Dust Tracks on a Road, Tell My Horse, and Mules and Men.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The classic story of light-skinned Janie Crawford's evolving selfhood through three marriages. A novel that "...belongs in the same category with that of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.''--Saturday Review.

ANNOTATION

Initially published in 1937, this novel about a proud, independent black woman's quest for identity, a journey that takes her through three marriages and back to her roots, has been one of the most widely read and highly acclaimed novels in the canon of African-American literature.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This novel about a proud, independent black woman was first published in 1937 and generally dismissed by reviewers. It was out of print for nearly 30 years when the University of Illinois Press reissued it in 1978, at which time it was instantly embraced by the literary establishment as one of the greatest works in the canon of African-American fiction.

Mesmerizing in its immediacy and haunting in its subtlety, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie Crawford—fair-skinned, long-haired, dreamy woman—who comes of age expecting better treatment than what she gets from her three husbands and community. Then she meets Tea Cake, a younger man who captivates Janie's heart and spirit, and offers her the chance to relish life without being one man's mule or another man's adornment.

SYNOPSIS

Born and raised in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated all-black town in the United States, Zora Neale Hurston (1903-60) ranks among the most influential writers of the 20th century, not simply for her influence on subsequent African-American writers but also for the passionate voice she gave to black culture in this country. After attending Morgan State College, Howard University, and Columbia University, Hurston began her career as a folklorist and social anthropologist, traveling to Haiti to study the evolution of the voodoo tradition. She quickly rejected the distanced, scientific attitude of the researcher, however, in order to become immersed in the culture. In two volumes, Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938), Hurston gathered the tales of the American South and the Caribbean. Hurston is most known, however, for her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel that created controversy by refusing to admit black inferiority while simultaneously refusing to depict its characters as victims of a world that thought them inferior. Two recent volumes, The Sanctified Church (1981) and Spunk (1984), collect her essays and short fiction, respectively.

FROM THE CRITICS

Saturday Review

Their Eyes belongs in the same category — with that of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway — of enduring American literature.

AudioFile

Dee is marvelous in all roles in this stage-worthy performance.

Heard Word

. . . thanks to this audiobook, Zora's characters speak to us - through the wonderful voice of Ruby Dee.

Sacred Fire

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston draws a sharp portrait of a proud, independent black woman looking for her own identity and resolving not to live lost in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or romantic dreams. Like most lives of black women of the early 20th century (or any time for that matter), Janie Crawford's life, told here in her own sure voice, is not without its frustrations, terrors, and tragedies — in fact, it is full of them. But the power of her story comes from her life-affirming attitude: Through all the changes she goes through — once divorced, twice widowed (once by her own gun-wielding hand)-she kept a death-grip commitment to live on her own terms, relying only on her own guts, creativity, strength, and passion, and the power she drew from her community, to pull her through. In Janie, Hurston created a character that reflected her own strong belief that the most important mission we have is to discover ourselves.

Janie Crawford was raised in the household of her grandmother, Nanny Crawford, a maid and a former slave. Janie, like her mother before her, was born of rape, and Nanny is committed to protecting her from the sexual and racial violence she and her daughter endured. She pushes Janie into marriage with an older man named Logan Killicks, a farmer with some property. Her life with Killicks is full of boredom and hard labor, so she runs off with Joe Starks, a handsome and well-off storekeeper who moves her to the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida. Even with the prestige and security this new marriage brings, she is bored and unfulfilled by her stunted life with Starks. When Starks dies, Janie begins to live with Tea Cake Woods, a man who cannot provide her with the stability that her Nanny taught her to value, but who finally gives her the passion and satisfaction she'd been looking for all along. Even when further tragedy greets her, she maintains a staunchly positive view of the future.

Hurston, an anthropologist and folklorist, fills this novel with shotgun rhythms and the poetic language of her native south. Language in this novel is crucial; it is through the beautiful self- made idiosyncrasies of southern speech and storytelling that Janie expresses her own will toward self-definition. Their Eyes Were Watching God has been called the first African American feminist novel because of its portrayal of a strong black woman rebelling against society's restrictions — and the received wisdom of her Nanny, no less — to seek out her own destiny. But ultimately, this is not a novel that looks out to the world to make political protest or social commentary; it concerns itself with describing the power that lies within us to define ourselves and our lives as we see fit, unbound and unfettered by society's limitations and prejudices. As Alice Walker once wrote, "There is enough self-love in that one book — love of community, culture, traditions — to restore a world."

AudioFile

At one time, lovers of Poe had access only to the recordings gathered here if they wanted to hear their favorite demon read aloud. The recordings have since fallen into near oblivion, as the rise of audiobooks replaced them with fresher interpretations. Their reappearance is most welcome, for these are superb renderings by the cornball ghoulish Price and filmdom's most famous Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone. Indeed, Rathbone is a revelation. His dry cinematic persona does not prepare one for the richness of his recital of Poe's dark stories and poems. One would expect these two actors, if anybody, would give us definitive orations, which they do. They know this material well—the obscure diction, the subtext, the classical references—and know how to make it chill the listener. It's a romp for them and a delight for us. Y.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine Read all 7 "From The Critics" >

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There is no book more important than this one. — Alice Walker

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