These are the words with which Zora Neale Hurston starts her most famous novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Her work slid into obscurity for decades for a number of reasons, both cultural and political.
Many readers objected to the representation of African American dialect in Hurston’s novels. Thinking like a folklorist, Hurston strove to represent speech patterns of the period which she documented through ethnographic research.
Some critics during her time felt that Hurston’s decision to render language in this way caricatured black culture. However, in recent times, critics have praised Hurston for her artful capture of the actual spoken idiom of the day.
Regardless of how much criticism her work encountered, the first line of Their Eyes Were Watching God remains a memorable and thought-provoking phrase.
