Solange Honors Zora Neale Hurston on BBC’s ‘Seriously': ‘As a Black Womanist I Felt Empowered by Her’

Solange took part in the BBC Radio 4 documentary series, Seriously... that aired on April 18. The documentary explored the life and work of  Zora Neale Hurston, a Harlem Renaissance author who is regarded as one of the pre-eminent writers of twentieth-century African-American literature.

In a six-minute segment, Solange recalled how she was first introduced to Hurston.

"I first read Zora Neale Hurston's work in my early twenties. And I started where I'm sure a lot of people started, with "Their Eyes Were Watching God" she said.

Solange went on to talk about how Hurston's writing inspired her.

"As a black woman and as a black womanist and feminist, I felt incredibly empowered by Zora’s work," she shared. “But I think the biggest impression that her work has had on me as a writer is just her way of communicating these themes, its poeticness and its bluntness. I think that she had such an incredible gift with that."

She also expressed how Hurston's writing inspired her when creating her own work. "One of the things that I find really interesting and empowered by in Zora's work is this idea of breaking down and disassembling the angry black woman. Which is something that I felt really empowered to do in my own work."

Listen to the full segment below.