Quicksand and Passing

Deborah E. McDowell is professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Nellallitea " Nella" Larsen, born Nellie Walker (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964), was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. The daughter of Peter Walker, a mulatto Afro-Caribbean immigrant from the West Indies and Marie Walker, né e Hansen, a Danish immigrant, Larsen worked as both a nurse and a librarian. Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) were her only novels, although she wrote some short stories. She earned some recognition during her lifetime, but there was a great revival of interest in her work in the latter part of the 20th Century, largely due to the publication of this edition.