From the Publisher
This volume enables readers both steeped in and new to Hurston to discover her acerbic wit, her crisp prose, and the breadth of her artistic ability and interests .... an invaluable nonfiction companion to the collection of Hurston's short stories.” — Booklist
“I liked this book... Reading Hurston, you always wonder what shape her dignity will take next. Her style and spark were her own.” — New York Times
“Hurston is bold, honest, and provocative, as always, whether she’s pontificating on the ideological mirage of white feminism or insisting that school integration did less than we thought to improve Black students’ educations. The lyrical and uncompromising prose in this collection offers a window into the world of one of our greatest literary minds.”
— Vulture
"Dazzling... provocative, funny, bawdy, informative and outrageous. Gates and West have put together a comprehensive collection that lets Hurston shine as a writer, a storyteller and an American iconoclast."
— Washington Post
“You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neal Hurston creates a powerful and nuanced mosaic of Black culture.”
— Christian Science Monitor
"This is a carry-it-everywhere-with-you kind of book, perfect for times when you need some introspection as diversion. “You Don’t Know Us Negroes” is like that, and that’s just the way it is."
— Philadelphia Tribune
“Vigorous writings from a controversial and important cultural critic.” — Kirkus Reviews
“You Don’t Know Us Negroes” adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston, who was a tireless crusader in all her writing, and ahead of her time. Though she was often misunderstood, sometimes maligned and occasionally dismissed, her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century. Despite facing sexism, racism and general ignorance, Hurston managed to produce a written legacy that, thanks to enduring collections like this one, will engage readers for generations to come.”
— New York Times Book Review
"The depth and power of Hurston’s prose continues to dazzle." — The Guardian
"With much of her work having been released and re-released posthumously, this collection recogni[z]es one of the finest writers of the 20th century." — Sunday Express (UK)
“You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays showcases the author’s breadth in a thrilling, if also uncomfortable, journey.” — The Atlantic
New York Times Book Review
Sheds new light on the Harlem Renaissance author, from her opposition to school integration to her use of African American vernacular.”
The Atlantic
Showcases the author’s breadth in a thrilling, if also uncomfortable, journey.”
Booklist
Enables readers both steeped in and new to Hurston to discover her acerbic wit, her crisp prose, and the breadth of her artistic ability and interests.”
The Guardian (London)
The depth and power of Hurston’s prose continues to dazzle.”
Kirkus Reviews
Vigorous writings from a controversial and important cultural critic.”
Sunday Express (starred review)
This collection recognizes one of the finest writers of the twentieth century.”
Christian Science Monitor
You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neal Hurston creates a powerful and nuanced mosaic of Black culture.”
Vulture
Hurston is bold, honest, and provocative, as always, whether she’s pontificating on the ideological mirage of white feminism or insisting that school integration did less than we thought to improve Black students’ educations. The lyrical and uncompromising prose in this collection offers a window into the world of one of our greatest literary minds.”
Washington Post
"Dazzling... provocative, funny, bawdy, informative and outrageous. Gates and West have put together a comprehensive collection that lets Hurston shine as a writer, a storyteller and an American iconoclast."
Philadelphia Tribune
"This is a carry-it-everywhere-with-you kind of book, perfect for times when you need some introspection as diversion. “You Don’t Know Us Negroes” is like that, and that’s just the way it is."
The Sunday Express
"With much of her work having been released and re-released posthumously, this collection recogni[z]es one of the finest writers of the 20th century."
The Guardian
"The depth and power of Hurston’s prose continues to dazzle."
New York Times
I liked this book... Reading Hurston, you always wonder what shape her dignity will take next. Her style and spark were her own.”
Washington Post
"Dazzling... provocative, funny, bawdy, informative and outrageous. Gates and West have put together a comprehensive collection that lets Hurston shine as a writer, a storyteller and an American iconoclast."
Booklist
This volume enables readers both steeped in and new to Hurston to discover her acerbic wit, her crisp prose, and the breadth of her artistic ability and interests .... an invaluable nonfiction companion to the collection of Hurston's short stories.
Kirkus Reviews
2021-11-04
A collection of Hurston’s trenchant, acerbic commentaries on Black life.
Edited, introduced, and extensively annotated by scholars Gates and West, 50 essays written over nearly four decades showcase the uncompromising views of novelist, anthropologist, folklorist, and critic Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). Organized thematically into sections focusing on “the Folk,” race, gender, art, politics, and the scandalous trial of a Black woman accused of killing her White lover, the essays cohere to present Hurston’s “lifelong attempt to reclaim traditional Black folk culture from racist and classist degradations, to share with her readers the ‘race pride’ she felt, to build the race from within.” In the title essay, among the handful previously unpublished, Hurston excoriates Whites for assuming that they understand anything about Black experience. “Most white people have seen our shows but not our lives,” she wrote in 1958. “If they have not seen a Negro show they have seen a minstrel or at least a black-face comedian and that is considered enough.” She hurled criticism at some Blacks, as well: After Harlem Renaissance leader Alain Locke panned her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she damned him as a fraud. In “Which Way the NAACP?” written in 1957, Hurston questioned “the interpretation of ‘advancement’ ” by the organization that pressed for school integration. “One has to be persuaded that a Negro suffers enormously by being deprived of physical contact with the Whites and be willing to pay a terrible price to gain it,” she wrote. Co-founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, the NAACP, she predicted, “will remain a self-constituted dictatorship so long as it does not ask and receive a mandate from the entire Negro population of the United States.” Writing during the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow, and civil rights unrest, Hurston argued for recognizing “the full richness of the African American experience” through its unique contributions to art, music, and language.
Vigorous writings from a controversial and important cultural critic.
