Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee: Views from 1948 & Beyond
By Nava Atlas | On June 13, 2023 | Comments (0)
Seraph on the Suwanee, Zora Neale Hurston’s fourth and last published novel (1948), was an outlier among her works, which included numerous short stories and ethnographic collections. The reason: it was her only book that was written about white people — specifically, Florida’s “white crackers.”
Exploring the cultural differences between the meek and colorless heroine, Arvay and her handsome, enterprising husband Jim, the novel received mixed-to-positive reviews by the white press.
Some reviewers bent over backwards to praise the fact that a Black writer produced a novel that wasn’t about race issues, bringing to light the lives and dialect of the turpentine people of Florida. Read More→