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Quicksand

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( 8,422 ratings, 917 reviews)
Brief Description
Quicksand by Nella Larsen is a powerful first novel that evocatively portrays the racial and gender restrictions that can mark a life. Born to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for... Read More
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Quicksand by Nella Larsen is a powerful first novel that evocatively portrays the racial and gender restrictions that can mark a life.

Born to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even here she feels different. Moving to Harlem and eventually to Denmark, she attempts to carve out a comfortable life and place for herself, but ends up back where she started, choosing emotional freedom that quickly translates into a narrow existence.

Nella Larsen's first novel has intriguing autobiographical parallels and at the same time invokes the international dimension of African American culture in the 1920s. Slow, moving and reflective, Quicksand is a detailed and evocative portrayal of a biracial woman's inner life.

Series: The Penguin English Library

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241652657

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 April 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 8.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 123g

Pages: 160

About the Author

Nella Larsen (1891-1964) was an American novelist and major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Chicago, she attended university in Nashville and subsequently lived in Denmark and New York, where she worked as a nurse and librarian. Her two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), established her as one of the most important black female novelists in American history.

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