Publisher, Harper Audio/Caedmon (November 2004)

Listen to an audio clip NOTE: You will need RealPlayer Basic to listen. It's FREE !

The printed book of this title was selected by The Reader's Catalog as one of the 40,000+ Best Books in Print!

The Reader's Catalog says:

Publisher's Weekly says "Truly outstanding." Received their 'Listen Up Award 2000'

"This is Hurston's masterpiece, a gorgeous novel of a young woman's search for identity.

Zora Neale Hurston was a leading light of African-American writing in the 1930s, but she died in obscurity and poverty in 1960, her books long out of print. Today Hurston's novels and folkloric studies are undergoing an extraordinary revival, making her more widely read than ever in her lifetime."

"Ruby Dee does an excellent job of narrating Hurston's classic 1937 novel." --Library Journal

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the 1930s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

This poetic, graceful love story, rooted in Black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, celebrates boldly and brilliantly African-American culture and heritage. And in a powerful, mesmerizing narrative, it pays quiet tribute to a Black woman who, though constricted by the times, still demanded to be heard.

Originally published in 1937 and long out of print, the book was reissued in 1975 and nearly three decades later Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered a seminal novel in American fiction.

About the Author: Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1891. Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, anthropologist and playwright whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage are unparalleled. Her books include Jonah's Gourd Vine, Mules and Men, Seraph on the Suwanee, and Moses, Man of the Mountain. She died in 1960.

About the Performer: Ruby Dee is one of the most respected African-American actors of her day and she was also an important part of the civil rights movement. She is best known for her role in A Raisin in the Sun, which she performed on stage and screen.

Dee has also authored plays, fiction, and a column for New York's Amsterdam News.

She was born in Cleveland, grew up in Harlem and worked early on with the American Negro Theater in Harlem. She is married to actor and author Ossie Davis.