Passing (Penguin Classics)

by Emily Bernard (Contributor), Nella Larsen (Author), Thadious M. Davis (Contributor)

• New

  Paperback
  2003

  $11.81

  A classic, brilliant and layered novel that has been at the heart of racial identity discourse in America for almost a century. Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage and has severed all ties to her past. Clare's childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, but refuses to acknowledge the racism that continues to constrict her family's happiness. A chance encounter forces both women to confront the lies they have told others - and the secret fears they have buried within themselves.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $33.10

  Larsen's status as a Harlem Renaissance woman writer was rivaled by only Zora Neale Hurston s. This Norton Critical Edition of her electrifying 1929 novel includes Carla Kaplan s detailed and thought-provoking introduction, thorough explanatory annotations, and a Note on the Text. An unusually rich Background and Contexts section connects the novel to the historical events of the day, most notably the sensational Rhinelander/Jones case of 1925. Fourteen contemporary reviews are reprinted, including those by Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Mary Griffin, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Published accounts from 1911 to 1935 by Langston Hughes, Juanita Ellsworth, and Caleb Johnson, among others provide a nuanced view of the contemporary cultural dimensions of race and passing, both in America and abroad. Also included are Larsen s statements on the novel and on passing, as well as a generous selection of her letters and her central writings on The Tragic Mulatto(a) in American literature. Additional perspective is provided by related Harlem Renaissance works. Criticism provides fifteen diverse critical interpretations, including those by Mary Helen Washington, Cheryl A. Wall, Deborah E. McDowell, David L. Blackmore, Kate Baldwin, and Catherine Rottenberg. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.