January 7, 2025 would have been Zora Neale Hurston’s 134th birthday, and now it will be the publication date of The Life of Herod the Great, a novel Hurston was still working on when she died in 1960. Per a release, the novel “brings first-century BC Judea to vivid life, and portrays Herod the Great not as a villainous monster, but as a religious, philosophical, and adventurous man.”
Based on a manuscript that, until now, has only been seen by a small group of scholars, the novel will include an introduction and afterword by Deborah Plant, who also oversaw the 2018 posthumous publication of another Hurston work, Barracoon. The Life of Herod the Great will be published by HarperOne imprint Amistad.