Quicksand & Passing by Nella Larsen

Quicksand & Passing by Nella Larsen

Quicksand (1928) is the first novel to give a voice to the sexual desires of a black woman. Helga Crane, the book?s protagonist, is trapped in the conflict between an active and a passive sexual behaviour, between sexual fufilment and middle-class respectability. Conflicts of race and sex even a religious conversion cannot resolve. Passing, written a year later, is overtly about black people who ?pass? for white, but in a veiled way it also is the desire of one woman for another - a new and daring theme for the writing of the time. The eroticism and sexuality that Nella Larsen was only able to whisper has in recent times been spoken loud and clear by Gayl Jones, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange and many other black women writers who recognize Nella Larsen as a pioneer and inspiration.

?Quicksand and Passing are novels that I will never forgetThey open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable.? Alice Walker ?Quicksand does not just explore the contradictory terrain of women and romance; its sexual politics tear apart the very fabric of the romance form.? Hazel Carby

Nella Larsen was born in Chicago in 1893 of a Danish mother and a West Indian father. She began writing during the Harlem Renaissance, a period during which black artists, writers, and musicians were prominent in the New York art scene. The success of Quicksand and Passing made Nella Larsen one of the most fêted woman writers of her generation. She died in 1963 in obscurity. Now her 'lost' work is being rediscovered and celebrated.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781852427450
ISBN 10	1852427450
Title	Quicksand & Passing
Author	Nella Larsen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Profile Books Ltd
Year published	2001-04-19
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.