1891–1960 · American author, anthropologist & folklorist of the Harlem Renaissance
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was a novelist, anthropologist, and folklorist whose fieldwork and fiction made her a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance; her best-known work is the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. She died in obscurity in 1960 and was rediscovered in the 1970s largely through Alice Walker’s advocacy. Her fame — and the fact that so few readers have combed her full body of work — makes her a frequent magnet for punchy, uplifting lines she never actually wrote.