Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960)

From SheWired.com:

Flamboyant, bold and outrageous were Zora Neale Hurston’s writings, as was her life. As the diva of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston was the most prolific black woman writer of her times and a brilliant chronicler of African American life.

A literary ancestor of the contemporary canon of African American women’s writings like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, etc., Hurston helped to create the art of black women’s narrative voices.

Hurston’s genius for storytelling and drama derived from depicting the lives of her subjects in the poetic cadence of black idiom, and her art form won her critical acclaim in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hurston’s explorations of black female characters, her analysis of women’s concerns, and their romantic quest for personal wholeness and female autonomy influenced a generation of writers.