佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿(Zora Neale Hurston)，1891-1960，是20世纪美国文学的重要人物之一。她是小说家、黑人民间传说收集研究家、人类学家。她也生在美国南方，是哈莱姆文艺复兴时期的活跃分子。她毕生为保持黑人文化传统而奋斗，收集出版了黑人民间故事集《骡与人》及《告诉我的马》。赫斯顿还写了四部小说：《他们眼望上苍》《约拿的葫芦藤》《摩西，山之人》《苏旺尼的六翼天使》。这是黑人文学中第一部充分展示黑人女子内心女性意识觉醒的作品，在黑人女性形象的创造上具有里程碑式的意义，被公认是黑人文学的经典作品之一。 BIRTHDATE: Jan. 7, 1891? EDUCATION: Graduated from Morgan Academy (high school division of Morgan College (now Morgan State University) in 1918. Attended Howard University and received her B.A. in anthropology from Barnard College, Columbia University in 1928. FAMILY BACKGROUND: Her father was a Baptist preacher, tenant farmer, and carpenter. At age three her family moved to Eatonville, Fla., the first incorporated black community in America, of which her father would become mayor. In her writings she would glorify Eatonville as a utopia where black Americans could live independent of the prejudices of white society. DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS: A novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston was the prototypical authority on black culture from the Harlem Renaissance. In this artistic movement of the 1920s black artists moved from traditional dialectical works and imitation of white writers to explore their own culture and affirm pride in their race. Zora Neale Hurston pursued this objective by combining literature with anthropology. She first gained attention with her short stories such as "John Redding Goes to Sea" and "Spunk" which appeared in black literary magazines. After several years of anthropological research financed through grants and fellowships, Zora Neale Hurston"s first novel Jonah"s Gourd Vine was published in 1934 to critical success. In 1935, her book Mules and Men, which investigated voodoo practices in black communities in Florida and New Orleans, also brought her kudos. The year 1937 saw the publication of what is considered Hurston"s greatest novel Their Eyes Watching God. And the following year her travelogue and study of Caribbean voodoo Tell My Horse was published. It received mixed reviews, as did her 1939 novel Moses, Man of the Mountain. Her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road was a commercial success in 1942, despite its overall absurdness, and her final novel Seraph on the Suwanee, published in 1948, was a critical failure. Zora Neale Hurston was a utopian, who held that black Americans could attain sovereignty from white American society and all its bigotry, as proven by her hometown of Eatonville. Never in her works did she address the issue of racism of whites toward blacks, and as this became a nascent theme among black writers in the post World War II ear of civil rights, Hurston"s literary influence faded. She further scathed her own reputation by railing the civil rights movement and supporting ultraconservative politicians. She died in poverty and obscurity. DATE OF DEATH: Jan. 28, 1960. PLACE OF DEATH: Fort Pierce, Fla. Primary Works Jonah"s Gourd Wine (novel), 1934; Mules and Men (folklore), 1935; Their Eyes Were Watching God (novel), 1937; Tell My Horse (Caribbean travel book), 1938; Moses: Man of the Mountain (novel), 1939; Dust Tracks on a Road (autobiography), 1942; Seraph on the Swanee, 1948; I Love Myself When I am Laughing ... & Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (ed. Alice Walker), 1979; The Sanctified Church (ed. Toni Cade Bambara), 1981; Spunk: The Selected Short Stories of ZNH, 1985. Drama: Color Struck:A Play in Four Scenes. Fire!! 1(November 1926): 7-14; "Great Day," 1927; Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts, 1931, Drama Critique (Spring 1964): 1-3-107. Fiction: Jonah"s Gourd Vine. Introduction by Fannie Hurston. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott; London: Duckworth Press, 1934; Moses, Man of the Mountain. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1939. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1941; Seraph on the Sewanee. New York: Charles Scribner"s Sons, 1948; Spunk, the Short Stories of Zora Neale Hurston. Berkeley, Calif.: Turtle Island Foundation, 1984; Their Eyes Were Watching God. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1937. Short Stories (not in Spunk): "Drenched in Light." Opportunity (December 1924): 371-74; "John Redding Goes to Sea." Opportunity (January 1926): 16-21. Nonfiction: Dust Tracks on a Road. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1942; I Love Myself When I Am Laughing anf Then Again when I Am Looking Mean And Impressive. Edited by Alice Walker. Introduction by Mary Helen Washington. Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1979; Mules and Men. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1935; The Sanctified Church. Foreward by Toni Cade Bambara. Berkeley, Calif.: Turtle Island Foundation, 1981; Tell My Horse. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1938. http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/hurs-zor.htm http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~gallaher/hurston/hurston.html 建议参看： 20世纪美国黑人文学批评理论 http://www.lwlm.com/show.aspx?id=4649&cid=47 关于Slavery Gave Nothing TO lost中的反传统的积极、乐观的奴隶制度，因为我没有看过原文不便评论，但对于奴隶制的认识不能局限于我们传统的观念，请思考过为什么在民主、共和的近代美国还会出现奴隶制。
