Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen was an American novelist who worked as a nurse and librarian before publishing Quicksand in 1928 and Passing in 1929. Passing, set in 1920s Harlem, follows two childhood friends whose lives split apart when one of them lives as white. Her output was small, but interest in her work revived in the late twentieth century, and scholars have since studied its questions of racial and sexual identity. She is now placed among the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance.