Go Gator and Muddy the Water: Writings From the Federal Writers' Project - Softcover

Zora Neale Hurston

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393318133 ISBN 13: 9780393318135

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999

Synopsis

A wonderful discovery of folklore writings-many previously unpublished-by Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

When Pamala Bordelon was researching a work on the Florida Federal Writers Project, she discovered writings in the collection that were unmistakably from the hand of Zora Neale Hurston, one of the leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Over half of the works included here have not been published or are only available in the Library of America edition of Hurston's works. As Hurston's fans know, all of her novels draw upon her deep interest in folklore, particularly from her home state of Florida. Here we see the roots of that work, from the wonderful folktale of the monstrous alligator living in a local lake to her recording of folk songs to her work on children's games and the black church. There are also fiery and controversial essays on race and the work of black artists. In a biographical essay, Pamala Bordelon, with the help of Hurston's niece, has re-created the years during which Hurston was working for the FWP and living in Eatonville. She has put together the portrait of a serious writer and folklorist who was running tight on money, but big on spirit. This book is an important new addition to Hurston's work.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

The writings of distinguished African-American Harlem Renaissance author, folklorist, playwright and anthropologist Hurston during her tenure (1938-39) in the Florida division of the Federal Writers Project, many of them previously unpublished, are collected here. They are augmented by Bordelon's biographical essay about Hurston's life during the year she participated in the project, and by her analysis and commentary. The FWP, a federally funded relief program that provided impoverished writers with employment, offered Hurston the lowliest position of "relief reporter," a title for which she was clearly overqualified. But Hurston, just three generations away from slavery, was accustomed to discrimination in a South where Jim Crow laws were still staunchly upheld. As a reporter for the FWP she was assigned to write 1500 words per week describing the lore of African-American Floridians, as part of a larger project, which was never realized and which, moreover, deleted most of Hurston's contributions from the manuscript-in-progress. Other work she submitted for the FWP was often ignored or heavily edited; a few pieces were included in an automotive guidebook, Florida. Included here are Hurston's transcriptions of African-American oral history: traditions, habits, folklore, lyrics and dances; as well as photographs of Hurston and associates, and her performance pieces and essays. Her notable observations on race, writing, her hometown and the upward mobility of blacks in her time are now invaluable historical resources. For Hurston fans, especially scholars, this book will offer a fuller picture of the writer's lesser-known literary endeavors.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

paper 0-393-31813-3 New work by Hurston (18891968), the Harlem Renaissance writer and folklorist. (Hurstons first collection of folklore, Mules and Men, is generally considered the first such compilation by an African-American. It was followed by Tell My Horse.) During the Depression, like many writers, Hurston went to work for the Works Progress Administration. As part of the Florida Federal Writers Project, she compiled this collection of folklore, parts of which have never been published before. Bordelon, an independent scholar who recovered the manuscript while researching the FWP, contributes a biographical essay on Hurston that focuses in particular on her years with the FWP. In her proposal, reprinted here, Hurston divides Florida into four areas, with different economic, social, and cultural factors influencing local folklore, including black folk religion. Folklore is the boiled- down juice of human living, she writes. Folklore in Florida is still in the making. Folk tunes, tales, and characters are still emerging from the lush place of primitive imagination before they can be finally drained by formal education and mechanical inversions. This volume represents part of Hurstons effort to capture that critical momoent in the development of black folklore, which included the creation of a new prison folk hero, Daddy Mention. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0393318133
• ISBN 13: 9780393318135
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 199
• Editor: Pamela Bordelon