Passing

Nella Larsen

Jul. 2020 · Pan Macmillan

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As dramatized on Radio 4 and seen on Netflix, Nella Larsen’s Passing is a distinctive and revealing novel about racial identity, and a key text of the Harlem Renaissance.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful hardbacks make perfect gifts for book lovers, or wonderful additions to your own collection. This edition of Passing features an introduction by writer and academic, Christa Holm Vogelius.

1920s Harlem, New York. Irene Redfield enjoys a comfortable life, married to a successful physician. After receiving a letter, she reluctantly renews her friendship with old classmate Clare Kendry. Both are light-skinned black women but, passing as white, Clare is married to a racist white man who has no idea about her racial heritage. Despite her misgivings, Irene cannot resist allowing Clare back into her life. As their lives become more intertwined, tensions mount between friends and partners and this taut, mesmerizing narrative spins towards its devastating conclusion.

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Nella Larsen was born in Chicago in 1891 to a white Danish mother and a black West Indian father. She studied in America and Denmark and, throughout her writing career, she worked as a children’s librarian and a nurse. In 1928 her first novel, Quicksand, was published to great critical acclaim. Passing was published a year later. Her marriage brought her into contact with the upper echelons of New York’s black society and she became an important voice of the Harlem Renaissance. She was the first black woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing. Divorced in 1933, she spent the rest of her life working as nurse. Nella Larsen died in 1964.