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In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurstonāthe sole black student at the collegeāwas living in New York, ādesperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.ā During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurstonās ālostā Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurstonās world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writerās voice and her contributions to Americaās literary traditions.
Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. She wrote four novels (Jonahās Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountains, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948) as well as The Life of Herod the Great, which she was still writing when she died; two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Every Tongue Got to Confess, 2001); a work of anthropological research (Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); an international bestselling ethnographic work (Barracoon: The Story of the Last āBlack Cargo,ā 2018); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1928. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.