Hurston, Zora Neale (1901-1960)

US writer. She was associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She collected traditional Afro-American folk tales in Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938). Among her many other works are the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road (1942).

Although her conservative philosophy of her later years alienated many of her contemporaries, she was a key figure for following generations of black women writers, including Alice Walker, who edited a collection of her writings, I Love Myself When I Am Laughing (1979).