Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston's most celebrated novel, first published in 1937. A classic of African-American Literature, it tells the story of Janie Crawford's evolving selfhood through three marriages.

The Bluest Eye, written by Tom Morrison and published in 1970, is the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old black girl who believes she is ugly and longs for blue eyes. Her obsession with blue eyes turns to insanity after her father rapes her and she gives birth to a premature baby who later dies.

The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (1988) by Henry Louis Gates, Jr is a study in which Gates explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature. Gates explains anew critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself.

ZoraNeale Hurston: A Literary Biography (1980), by...