Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a multi-genre writer and anthropologist who focused on the African diaspora in the American South and the Caribbean. Hurston incorporated both autobiographical elements and her anthropological fieldwork into her fiction; for example, Jonah’s Gourd Vine is set in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first self-governing, all-Black communities in the U.S. and Hurston's hometown.