Quicksand and Passing: Two Novellas

VINTAGE CLASSICS’ HARLEM RENAISSANCE SERIES

Celebrating the finest works of the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most important Black arts movements in modern history.

‘She could neither conform nor be happy in her unconformity’

Nella Larsen wrote two novels in her lifetime, both of which are collected here. The first, Quicksand, follows a mixed-race woman who runs from the fictional town of Naxos to Chicago to Harlem to Copenhagen. It becomes easy for her to leave behind places but the discrimination she’s running from is inescapable. In Passing, two childhood friends reconnect later in life. One, slightly more light-skinned than the other, lives her life passing for a white person, married to a flagrant racist while her friend observes uneasily.

Masterfully plotted and infinitely illuminating, Quicksand and Passing are two of the finest works of the Harlem Renaissance.

‘A beloved novel from the Harlem Renaissance that follows the fraught relationship between two childhood friends, one who passes for white and one who chooses not to’ Brit Bennett

‘Absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable’ Alice Walker

‘Buy the book’ W. E. B. Du Bois