Written by Zora Neale Hurston

When Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. She endures two stifling marriages before she meets the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds.

This African-American classic was first published in the 1930s and is seen as one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century. The author, Zora Neale Hurston, grew up in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black town in America. Nearly every black female writer of significance - including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker - acknowledges Zora Neale Hurston as her literary foremother.

"A rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive." Zadie Smith

Read by Adjoa Andoh
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. Show less