A.J. McClenon

A.J MCLENON WAS THE NICHOLSON PROJECT’S 2021 IN-HOUSE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE.

Recommendation: WRAPPED IN RAINBOWS: THE LIFE OF ZORA NEALE HURSTON BY VALERIE BOYD

“Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, was a relevant read for me as someone who was born and raised in DC during a time when it could still be considered Chocolate City as Boyd journeys the reader through Hurston's hometown of Eatonville, Florida. While Eatonville was a town designed for and mostly by Black people, unlike DC, the shaping of a Black individual being surrounded by Black professionals, elders, and peers alike allows for such an individual to experience the power and nuances of Blackness that can be more convoluted (not impossible) in integrated spaces that centers whiteness. Hurston's foundational experiences allowed her work as a writer, anthropologist, and filmmaker to be led with sincere intentionality, making her work powerful for the historical Black Archive. This book feels very necessary for a residency in a Black neighborhood in our nation's capitol that once thrived on its majority Black population.”

Book Description: A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother, and her 1937 masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God has become a crucial part of the modern literary canon.

Wrapped in Rainbows, the first biography of Zora Neale Hurston in more than twenty-five years, illuminates the adventures, complexities, and sorrows of an extraordinary life. Acclaimed journalist Valerie Boyd delves into Hurston’s history—her youth in the country’s first incorporated all-black town, her friendships with luminaries such as Langston Hughes, her sexuality and short-lived marriages, and her mysterious relationship with vodou. With the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, and World War II as historical backdrops, Wrapped in Rainbows not only positions Hurston’s work in her time but also offers riveting implications for our own.