This massive collection of letters--over 500 in all--illuminates the life of Zora Neale Hurston and her circle. Written to, among others, Langston Hughes, Carl Van Vechten, Fannie Hurst, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Hurston's letters are sharply intelligent, fiercely individual, and heartbreakingly explicit as they chronicle her rise and fall as a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance. A New York Times Notable Book for 2003.