Quicksand (Bedford College Editions) - Softcover

Larsen, Nella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1457646021 ISBN 13: 9781457646027

Publisher: Bedford Books, 2016

Synopsis

2011 Reprint of 1928 Edition not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Nella Larsen's first novel tells the story of Helga Crane, a fictional character loosely based on Larsen's own early life. Crane is the lovely and refined daughter of a Danish mother and a West Indian black father who abandons Helga and her mother soon after Helga is born. Unable to feel comfortable with any of her white-skinned relatives, Helga lives in various places in America and visits Denmark in search of people among whom she feels at home. The work is a superb psychological study of a complicated and appealing woman, Helga Crane, who, like Larsen herself, is the product of a liaison between a black man and a white woman. In one sense, Quicksand might be called an odyssey; however, instead of overcoming a series of obstacles and finally arriving at her native land, Larsen's protagonist has a series of adventures, each of which ends in disappointment.

About this title

Review:

"Fine, thoughtful and courageous. It is, on the whole, the best piece of fiction that Negro America has produced since the heyday of [Charles] Chesnutt." --W. E. B. Du Bois

-Fine, thoughtful and courageous. It is, on the whole, the best piece of fiction that Negro America has produced since the heyday of [Charles] Chesnutt.- --W. E. B. Du Bois

About the Author:

Nella Larsen was a black American novelist and a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Her two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), were brief, but to this day are at the heart of up-to-the-minute debates over racial and sexual identity. From these two books alone, she is regarded as one of the most important black female novelists in American history.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bedford Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1457646021
• ISBN 13: 9781457646027
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160