Zora Neale Hurston and the Legacy of Black Feminism - (Bloomsbury Studies in Global Women's Writing) by Chielozona Eze (Hardcover)

About the Book

An examination of the ethical and social assumptions of Zora Neale Hurston's aesthetics and feminist visions, this book uses desire as a liberating philosophical concept to study Hurston's influence in the works of the Black women writers who came after her.

Book Synopsis

The first extended examination into the structure of influence of Zora Neale Hurston's work on major Black women writers, an idea that has been widely accepted, this book explores Hurston's impact on such authors as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Rita Dove, and Tracy K. Smith.

Focusing specifically on the concept of desire as a liberatory idiom and as the highest expression of self-consciousness and personhood, Chielozona Eze delves into the ethical and social assumptions of Hurston's aesthetics and feminist visions and their manifestations in the works of the Black women writers who came after her.

Through philosophical conceptions of desire, and zoning in on Hurston's Their Eyes were Watching God and its protagonist Janie Crawford, Eze unlocks crucial conceptual and analytic trajectories regarding debates on freedom, personhood and Black feminism, and how such rich interiority appears in key works by Black women. Surveying fiction including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, and The Color Purple, and poetry collections such as Life on Mars, The Body's Question The Yellow House on the Corner, Thomas and Beulah, this book is a remarkable intervention with important implications for our times.

Review Quotes

"Refreshingly theorized and analytically astute, this book breaks new ground in Zora Neale Hurston studies. It offers a philosophically centered reframing of not only Hurston's life, career, and works, but also her influences on major black women novelists and poets." --Christopher N. Okonkwo, Professor, Department of English, Florida State University and author of Kindred Spirits: Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison.

"Zora Neale Hurston, a wildcard of the Harlem Renaissance, was frequently sidelined for her unorthodox perspectives on race and gender. In Zora Neale Hurston and the Legacy of Black Feminism, Eze explores the overlooked question of why, tracing these tensions to Hurston's philosophy and her focus on desire at the heart of the self. Meticulously researched, this book offers a fresh, essential understanding of Hurston's enduring legacy in Black female writing." --Portia Owusu, Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies, Texas A&M University, USA

About the Author

Chielozona Eze is Professor and Director of Africana Studies at Carleton College, USA, and Research Associate at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. He has authored 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals and five monographs, one of which was on Alain Locke and the Harlem Renaissance.