Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was an African American writer, anthropologist, and folklorist, and a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Trained in anthropology under Franz Boas, Hurston combined ethnographic research with literary storytelling, documenting African American life, oral traditions, and vernacular speech in the American South and the Caribbean. Her work foregrounds questions of race, gender, culture, and voice, often emphasizing Black autonomy, female subjectivity, and everyday lived experience rather than overt political protest. Blending fiction, folklore, and anthropology, Hurston developed a distinctive narrative style that celebrates cultural specificity while challenging dominant literary and academic conventions.