The only collaboration between the two brightest lights of the Harlem Renaissance—Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes
In 1930, two giants of African American literature joined forces to create a lively, insightful, often wildly farcical look inside a rural Southern black community—the three-act play Mule Bone. In this hilarious story, Jim and Dave are a struggling song-and-dance team, and when a woman comes between them, chaos ensues in their tiny Florida hometown. This extraordinary theatrical work broke new ground while triggering a bitter controversy between the collaborators that kept it out of the public eye for sixty years.
This edition of the rarely seen stage classic features Hurston's original short story, "The Bone of Contention," as well as the complete recounting of the acrimonious literary dispute that prevented Mule Bone from being produced or published until decades after the authors' deaths.
About the Author
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage remain unparalleled. Her many books include Dust Tracks on a Road; Their Eyes Were Watching God; Jonah's Gourd Vine; Moses, Man of the Mountain; Mules and Men; and Every Tongue Got to Confess.