Photo: Carl Van Vechten, Public domain — Source
American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker who was a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her masterwork 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' (1937) is now considered one of the great American novels, though it was dismissed by some contemporaries for its use of Black vernacular. She conducted extensive anthropological fieldwork in the American South, Haiti, and Jamaica, documenting folklore, voodoo practices, and oral traditions. She published four novels, two books of folklore, an autobiography, and numerous stories and essays. She died in obscurity and poverty; Alice Walker revived interest in her work in the 1970s.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica