Now a major Netflix film starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgard Childhood friends Clare and Irene are both light-skinned enough to pass as white, but only one of them has chosen to cross the colour line and live with the secret hanging over her. Clare believes she had successfully cut herself off from any connection to her past. Married to a racist white man who is oblivious to her African-American heritage, it is vital to her that the truth remains hidden. Irene is living as a middle-class Black woman with her husband and children in Harlem, taking on an important role in her community and embracing her origins. Both women are forced to re-examine their relationships with each other, with their husbands and with the truth, confronting their most closely guarded fears. Nella Larsen's powerful, tragic and acutely observant writing established her as a lodestar of America's Harlem Renaissance. Almost a century later, Passing and its nuanced exploration of the many fraught ways in which we seek to survive remains as timely as ever

A classic of the Harlem Renaissance reissued to coincide with the major Netflix adaptation of Passing (2021)

About the Author
Nella Larsen was born in Chicago in 1893 to a Danish mother and a West Indian father. She began writing during the Harlem Renaissance, a period during which Black artists, writers, and musicians finally began to attain prominence in the New York artistic scene. The success of her novels Quicksand and Passing made Nella Larsen one of the most feted woman writers of her generation. She died in 1964 in obscurity.

Reviews
Absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable -- Alice Walker
Highly charged... an original and hugely insightful writer * The New York Times *
Discovering the fiction of Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt -- Maya Angelou
Larsen's heroines are complex, restless, figures, whose hungers and frustrations will haunt every sensitive reader -- Sarah Waters
Strangely, alarmingly moving. It gave shape and language to the racial ambivalence I experienced ... narrative may the best tool we have for binding together the disparate elements that make up the self -- Alexandra Kleeman
A groundbreaking novel of intersectionality ... tightly woven and plaintive * Vox *



Book Information
ISBN 9781800811683
Author Nella Larsen
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Serpent's Tail
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 147g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 128mm * 12mm