Hurston, Zora Neale

(born Jan. 7, 1891, Notasulga, Ala., U.S.—died Jan. 28, 1960, Fort Pierce, Fla.) U.S. folklorist and writer.

Although she claimed to have been born in 1901 in Eatonville, Fla., she was in fact born in Alabama 10 years earlier, and her family moved to Eatonville when she was a child. She joined a traveling theatrical company, ending up in New York, where she studied anthropology with Franz Boas at Columbia University and became associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She collaborated with Langston Hughes on the play Mule Bone (1931). Her first novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), was followed by the controversial but widely acclaimed Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). She also wrote an autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942).