A new novel by Zora Neale Hurston reimagines the biblical King Herod
In the soon-to-be-published “The Life of Herod the Great,” Zora Neale Hurston reframes one of the Bible’s greatest villains.
Over 60 years after her death, Zora Neale Hurston’s writing still astounds — and soon, lovers of her work will have a new offering from the acclaimed Harlem Renaissance author. Per People magazine, “The Life of Herod the Great,” a posthumously published novel by Hurston recovered after her death, will make its debut on the author’s birthday, January 7, 2025.
Published by HarperCollins imprint Amistad, the narrative reportedly “reconsiders the life of the Biblical figure” Herod, according to People, which exclusively debuted the novel’s new cover on Friday. The publisher describes Hurston’s never-before-published imagining of Herod the Great as “not the villain the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of valor and vision.”
The book is the latest in a series of posthumous writings by Hurston to be introduced to the public in recent years, including “Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo” (2018); “Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance” (2020) and “You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays” (2022). Best known for her 1937 masterpiece “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Hurston’s literary legacy was in peril when she died in 1960 at age 69, as her unpublished manuscripts and essays were almost lost entirely. Reportedly salvaged by a friend who safeguarded the now-treasured work before it was archived by institutions and museums, the collection now adds to a trove of writing predominantly highlighting Black Southern life in the early to mid-20th century by a woman now considered by many to be amongst the greatest of American writers.
With the publication of “The Life of Herod the Great,” readers of Hurston, also an anthropologist and the daughter of a Baptist minister, are invited to explore her perspective on one of the Bible’s most ominous figures. “Portraying him within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, little known to modern readers, Hurston’s unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling, and misunderstood leader fully into focus,” says the publisher. In the text, Hurston posits that Herod “seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate.”
Perhaps the same could be said of the writer herself.
“The Life of Herod the Great” will be available on Jan. 7, 2025, wherever books are sold.
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