Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), a legend in twentieth-century African American literature and the Harlem Renaissance, has influenced such writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Toni Cade Bambara. She was a novelist, folklorist, playwright, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage are considered by many to be unparalleled.

Her books include "Tell My Horse," "Mules and Men," "Dust Tracks on a Road," and "Mule Bone." "Their Eyes Were Watching God," however, is generally acknowledged to be Hurston's finest work of fiction. Still, it was controversial. Richard Wright once called the book "counter-revolutionary" in a New Masses article while Alice Walker has said, "There is no book more important to me than this one."

Listen to MP3 excerpt of "Their Eyes Were Watching God," read by actress Ruby Dee and courtesy of HarperAudio.