Jonah's Gourd Vine

Jonah's Gourd Vine is the 1934 debut novel by Zora Neale Hurston. The novel is a semi-autobiographical novel describing the migration of characters, similar to her parents, from Alabama to Hurston's home of Eatonville, Florida.

It took Hurston only three to four months to write the novel. The novel's title derives from Jonah 4.6-10, using the gourd vine from the passage as a metaphor for the main character of the novel, John Peterson, a philandering preacher.

The novel explores the dysfunction of marriage as it precedes over multi-generational African American communities. The novel also explores other themes common to African American literature, include escapism, and racial politics.