Dust tracks on a road

With a new introduction by JESMYN WARD'Warm, witty, imaginative . . . A rich and winning book' NEW YORKER 'Devilishly funny and academically solid: delicious mixture' MAYA ANGELOU'One of the greatest writers of our time' TONI MORRISONFirst published in 1942 at the height of her popularity, Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston's candid, exuberant account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to a prominent place among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance.

As compelling as her acclaimed fiction, Hurston's literary self-portrait offers a revealing, often audacious glimpse into the life - public and private - of an extraordinary artist, anthropologist, chronicler and champion of the black experience in America.

Full of the wit and wisdom of a proud, spirited woman who started off low and climbed high: 'I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots.

Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows with a harp and a sword in my hands'.