Published on TheRoot.com –

Literary Women Pay Homage to Zora Neale Hurston on Her 125th Birthday
by Janelle Harris; excerpt by Eisa Ulen | 01/07/16 | Culture

“I first read Their Eyes Were Watching God in college and fell in love. The lyrical prose, dynamic black female protagonist, fresh use of humor and powerful affirmation of sisterhood all bewitched me. Zora’s personal narrative, however, scared me. I aspired to write, had already started publishing some of my work, and the experience of silence and invisibility both in Zora’s work and in her life freaked me out. I was inspired by her resistance to erasure, her insistence on voiced expression, but the last years of her life seemed so tragic. I was haunted by fear of a similar kind of dispossession, even as my own writing took off after college and graduate school. Then I read Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd. She helped me understand Zora wasn’t dispossessed at all. She was free. And she could free me.” ~ Author Eisa Nefertari Ulen

Published on TheRoot.com by Eisa Ulen, 01/07/16.