--- title: Zora Neale Hurston at 125: What Her Work Said About America description: The author was born 125 years ago, on Jan. 7, 1891 canonical: https://time.com/4160190/zora-neale-hurston-birthday/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-07T12:00:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:36:53.210Z article:section: History og:title: Zora Neale Hurston at 125: What Her Work Said About America og:description: The author was born 125 years ago, on Jan. 7, 1891 og:url: https://time.com/4160190/zora-neale-hurston-birthday/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt11343e557c7cef78/698876c0cd1bba521a6feac5/znh.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Zora Neale Hurston og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Zora Neale Hurston at 125: What Her Work Said About America twitter:description: The author was born 125 years ago, on Jan. 7, 1891 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt11343e557c7cef78/698876c0cd1bba521a6feac5/znh.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Zora Neale Hurston Helped Her Readers Understand the World  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 7, 2016 12:00 PM CUT  Author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) at a book fair, New York, N.Y., circa 1937. Author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) at a book fair, New York, N.Y., circa 1937.PhotoQuest / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 7, 2016 12:00 PM CUT Today the work of Zora Neale Hurston is taught in schools and turned into [movies](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406265/ "undefined"). But the American author—who was born on this day 125 years ago, Jan. 7, 1891—wasn’t always a household name. In fact, in TIME’s [1937 review](http://time.com/vault/issue/1937-09-20/page/87/ "undefined") of _Their Eyes Were Watching God_, perhaps her best-known book, the magazine’s unbylined critic noted that white Americans would likely avert their eyes instead. In North and South alike, the critic posited, people hesitated to confront the harshest realities of what life was like for their non-white neighbors. Southerners would “disregard” the truth they knew too well and Northerners would find it “embarrassing” and “indigestible.” “But to white readers who object to their violent brushwork \[Hurston and her colleagues\] might truthfully reply: Negro life is violent,” the review continued—and literature was a valuable way to help those who were not personally impacted by that violence to better understand it. Tellingly for the era, the review does not even consider how non-white audiences might respond to the work of an author like Hurston. Years later, two decades after Hurston’s 1960 [death](http://time.com/vault/issue/1960-02-15/page/110/ "undefined"), a TIME [essay](http://time.com/vault/issue/1981-03-16/page/96/ "undefined") on race relations in America examined how literature like Hurston’s could help the nation understand the relationship between past and present: --- > “” --- This work can create mutual recognition, the essayist, Roger Rosenblatt, explained. After that recognition comes the potential for something more significant. “Either \[people of different races\] can choose to treat that act as a mere acknowledgment, as a separate-but-equal nod, or they can elaborate on it—dress it up, fill it out, talk,” he wrote. “They know perfectly well what life is like when they do not do that; that is no great secret. The great secret is that they may need each other.” **_Read the full essay, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Great Black and White Secret](http://time.com/vault/issue/1981-03-16/page/96/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4160190/zora-neale-hurston-birthday/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4160190/zora-neale-hurston-birthday/"},"headline":"How Zora Neale Hurston Helped Her Readers Understand the World","datePublished":"2016-01-07T12:00:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:36:53.210Z","description":"The author was born 125 years ago, on Jan. 7, 1891","url":"https://time.com/4160190/zora-neale-hurston-birthday/","keywords":["Books","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt11343e557c7cef78/698876c0cd1bba521a6feac5/znh.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt11343e557c7cef78/698876c0cd1bba521a6feac5/znh.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Zora Neale Hurston","caption":"Zora Neale Hurston","creditText":"PhotoQuest / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4160190/zora-neale-hurston-birthday/","name":"How Zora Neale Hurston Helped Her Readers Understand the World"}}]}] ```