The classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance. Now a major motion picture and a selection of the New York Times Style Magazine Book Club.
Clare Kendry has the life she always dreamed of—she’s beautiful, has a daughter that she loves dearly, and a wealthy husband who ensures their lives are very comfortable. She also has a secret that her husband must never know. She’s been passing as white. After a chance encounter with a childhood friend, Irene Redfield, Clare realizes all that she has given up by denying her heritage. As Clare increasingly imposes herself on Irene in an attempt to recapture what she has lost, Irene faces her own crisis, struggling with her obligations to her friend, to her race, to her family, and to herself.
Passing addresses the fluidity of racial identity and the personal impact of with a directness seldom, if ever, seen before its first appearance. Upon its publication, W. E. B. Du Bois hailed it as "one of the finest novels of the year."
About Nella Larsen
After the publication of her first novel Quicksand in 1928, Nella Larsen was considered a rising star of the Harlem Renaissance. Passing appeared the following year, and in 1930 Larsen became the first black woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing. Personal issues prevented the completion of her third novel, and by the late 1930s Larsen had stopped writing entirely and faded from the scene. She returned to her work as a nurse—a career she had pursued before her writing success. She died in Brooklyn in 1964, at the age of 72. In the late 1960s her works were republished and discovered by a new generation of readers.
