Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This book is such an amazing love story between Janey & Tea Cake! It also shows the strength, independence, fearlessness & pride of the main character Janey. Rarely do you read stories about genuine love among Black folks during that time period - so it was heartwarming to read about the love they had for each other! The book is written in Black dialect & folk speech, which was initially difficult for me to read. I put the book down several times back in the 80’s out of frustration with the language - then finally I read it out loud until I got the hang of understanding the spelling & speech patterns & I absolutely loved it! I have read it many times since!
Zora has written many books that portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s in the southern US. She also traveled extensively and conducted research on praise singers in the southern US & African spirituality in the Caribbean and wrote books about those experiences! I also love Zora, she was a free-spirited, independent Renaissance woman, who was an author, folklorist, anthropologist, filmmaker & sister!! Zora became my literary heroine & one of my role models and has been a major influence in my life as a woman, writer & educator. I have deep admiration for her life & work and I proudly have all of her books in my library.
No comments:
Post a Comment