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Book at Bedtime

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Episode 6

Duration: 15 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston

Episode 6

Janie has noticed that Joe is getting older but the older he gets the more he criticises her for being middle aged. Then one day she turns on him in front of the customers in the store and the pride of the Mayor of Eatonville is irrevocably damaged.

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

A 1930s African-American classic which tells Janie's story in dazzling Southern prose

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 woman 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. Show less

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