Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
Summary
Janie Crawford narrates her own life story to a friend back home, recounting three marriages across the American South as she searches for love and self determination on her own terms rather than the terms her community expects of a Black woman. Hurston writes in a richly rendered vernacular that captures the rhythms of Black Southern speech with an anthropologist's ear and a novelist's compassion. Long neglected after its initial publication, the novel was rediscovered decades later and is now considered a landmark of American literature.
Historical Context & Significance
The 1938 Pulitzer for fiction went to John P. Marquand's The Late George Apley, and contemporary Black critics including Richard Wright dismissed Hurston's novel at the time of its release. The book fell out of print for decades before Alice Walker and other writers led its rediscovery in the 1970s.