Google's latest America-only doodle celebrates the birthday of author Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote dozens of short stories and essays but is best remembered for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. 

Born in Notasulga, Alabama, in 1891, Hurston came to New York City in 1925, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. She travelled extensively throughout the American south and the Caribbean, collecting stories and experiences and transcribing them with near-anthropological accuracy in her stories. The Guardian's Gary Younge, in a review of the 2003 Hurston biography Wrapped in Rainbows, described her unique place in the world:

The trouble with Hurston is that as a black woman writer at the beginning of the last century she simply did not know her place. And for that may we all be thankful. The world was not ready in 1930 for a black, working class woman who would drive through the American south collecting folklore tales in a Chevrolet coupe she called "Sassy Susie".

But Hurston was ready for the world. Married three times, she could never settle because she would accept no restrictions on her liberty. 

Hurston died in obscurity in 1960, nearly forgotten save for a false accusation of child molestation in 1948 (she proved she was out of the country at the time, but the stain on her reputation remained). A 1975 essay by Alice Walker began the process of Hurston's rediscovery, and Their Eyes Were Watching God is now regularly featured on academic reading lists throughout the country. Eatonville, Florida, holds an annual festival in her honor.

Today is the 123rd anniversary of her birth.