Zora Neale Hurston was a prolific African-American novelist, short story writer, folklorist and anthropologist.

She was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance era that included musicians like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald, photographers like James Van Der Zee and fellow writers such as W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes.

Hurston has published four novels and over fifty published short stories, plays and essays over a span of almost fifty years starting in 1921. She even adapted some of her works into Broadway revues in the 1930s.

Her book Mules and Men remains one of John Green’s all-time favorites and her most famous work [Their Eyes Were Watching God] is read in high school literature classes around the world.