Zora Neale Hurston publishes new novel posthumously, inspired by biblical figure Herod the Great (exclusive)

“The Life of Herod the Great” is an unfinished manuscript by the author who died in 1960

Popular Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston has written a new novel due out in 2025.

PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the cover of Hurston’s posthumous novel, The Life of Herod the Greatwill be published next year by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Hurston, a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance whose work focused on black life in the South, is best known for her 1937 novel Their eyes watched GodIn the 1950s, after the publication of her novel Moses, Man of the Mountainwrote Hurston The Life of Herod the Great as a sequel that sheds new light on the life of the biblical figure of the same name.

Compared to figures such as Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, Herod lived on the threshold of a new era. The time was marked by war, imperial expansion and political assassinations. In her novel, Hurston interprets Herod not as a “villainous” hero, as he is portrayed in the New Testament, but as an adventurous “forerunner of Christ,” as the book calls him.

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Hurston places Herod in a new context for today’s readers in The Life of Herod the Great. The new novel will also include Hurston’s letters to friends and an endnote titled “Commentary: A Story Finally Told” by scholar Deborah Plant, which “underscores Hurston’s point about how reimagining figures from the past can solve the problems we face today,” according to the publisher.

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In addition to her novels, Hurston was a well-known author of poems, plays, and essays, many of which were published after her death. Hurston was also a documentary filmmaker and anthropologist, conducting studies of African-American folklore in the South. She died on January 28, 1960, at the age of 69.