In her introduction to Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Maya Angelou states: “It is difficult, if not impossible, to find and touch the real Zora Neale Hurston” (xii). Hurston’s life has been surrounded by questions and controversy, and many of these questions, especially about her adult life, are not answered in her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. Hurston’s autobiography is contained in three volumes: her “official” autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road; her famous anthropological work, Mules and Men; and her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Her masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is the first self-conscious effort by an American ethnic wr

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First published 04 March 2005

Citation: Johnson, Yvonne. "Zora Neale Hurston". The Literary Encyclopedia. 4 March 2005.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2272, accessed 9 February 2010.]