Bøger af Nella Larsen

Helga Crane i Kviksand er datter af en dansk mor, immigreret til USA, og en sort far. Hun føler sig ikke hjemme i de sortes miljø, hvor snakken går på racespørgsmålet. Ensom og rastløs beslutter hun at tage til familien i Danmark. Her bliver hun feteret, men efterhånden bliver hun utilpas af at blive betragtet som en kuriositet. Hun vender tilbage til USA. Med sig har hun ensomheden og bevidstheden om at være en evig outsider. Overgang handler om to barndomsveninder, som begge er vokset op i Harlem, og som tilfældigt mødes efter mange år. Clare har vendt fortiden ryggen, går for at være hvid og er blevet gift med en hvid mand. Da hun møder Irene, gribes hun af et uimodståeligt behov for at være sammen med farvede. Men hun løber risikoen for at blive afsløret, hvilket kan få katastrofale følger. .

A gorgeous edition of Nella Larsen's powerful classic novel on female racial identity with an introduction by Christa Holm Vogelius.

Nella Larsen's 1929 novella follows friends Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, two black women who pass as white. Their anxieties about passing culminate in tragedy, revealing the powerful repercussions of hiding one's identity. Nearly a century later, Larsen's exploration of race remains urgent and relevant as ever.

The orphan of a Danish mother and a West Indian father, Helga Crane is a young woman caught between cultures and in search of a home. Though her beauty and education open many doors, as a biracial woman in 1920s America, Helga is accepted by neither the Black nor the white communities--instead remaining an object of curiosity and an outsider wherever she goes. Her furious quest for belonging will take her from Chicago to New York to Denmark: a journey rife with autobiographical parallels to Larsen's own life. With its astonishingly contemporary take on identity and an angry, rebellious heroine, Quicksand is a classic novel ripe for rediscovery.

Passing is a remarkably candid exploration of shifting racial and sexual boundaries. 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.

Quicksand is a novel by American author Nella Larsen, published in 1928. It explores cross-cultural and interracial themes, with the protagonist being Helga Crane, a mixed-race African American woman who struggles to find her identity in a world of racialized crisis in the 1920s. Helga's early years were spent with her Danish mother and white stepfather, who loathed her. The novel gives us a glimpse into the dichotomy of biracial identity and the divergence into two vastly different worlds as the protagonist travels through uniquely different cultural spaces ranging from Jazz Age Harlem to Copenhagen, Denmark.During the 1920s, the "Lost Generation" began its transformation of American literature, with the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) sowing fear in the whole nation. The first-ever licensed radio station was created during the 1920s, and from 1910 to the 1930s, Harlem was in the "golden period" or the "Roaring 20's," shaping the path for many African Americans to display their art of music, dance, literature, and more.

The orphan of a Danish mother and a West Indian father, Helga Crane is a young woman caught between cultures and in search of a home. Though her beauty and education open many doors, as a biracial woman in 1920s America, Helga is accepted by neither the Black nor the white communities--instead remaining an object of curiosity and an outsider wherever she goes. Her furious quest for belonging will take her from Chicago to New York to Denmark: a journey rife with autobiographical parallels to Larsen's own life. With its astonishingly contemporary take on identity and an angry, rebellious heroine, Quicksand is a classic novel ripe for rediscovery.

'The overlooked American writer who blows apart modern thinking on race' TelegraphBorn to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even here she feels different. Moving to Harlem and eventually to Denmark, she attempts to carve out a comfortable life and place for herself, but ends up back where she started, choosing emotional freedom that quickly translates into a narrow existence.Nella Larsen's powerful first novel, has intriguing autobiographical parallels and at the same time invokes the international dimension of African American culture of the 1920s. Slow, moving and reflective, Quicksand is a detailed and evocative portrayal of a biracial woman's inner life.

Set primarily in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the 1920s, the story centers around the reunion of two childhood friends--Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield--and their increasing fascination with each other's lives. The story is told as a third person narrative from the perspective of Irene Redfield, a black woman with a European appearance, who receives an invitation to meet her old friend Claire. Clare's husband John (Jack) is not aware of her black ancestry as she attempt to pass as white for him. The title refers to the practice of "racial passing", and is a key element of the novel and a catalyst for the events that followed.

Throughout her short but brilliant literary career, Nell Larsen wrote piercing dramas about the black middle class that featured sensitive, spirited heroines struggling to find a place where they belong. Passing is a disturbing story about the unravelling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom turns her back on her past and marries a white racist. Just as disquieting is the portrait in Quicksand of biracial Helga Crane, who is unable to escape her loneliness no matter where and with whom she lives. Race and marriage offer few securities here or in the other stories in this compulsively readable collection, rich in psychological complexities and imbued with a vibrant sense of place - be it 1920s Harlem, Chicago, or Copenhagen.

First published in 1928, "Quicksand" is the first novel by American author Nella Larsen. It is the semi-autobiographical tale of a young, mixed race woman who struggles to find her place in the world. Like her main character, Helga Crane, Larsen was the daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father who disappeared from her life as a baby. Larsen and the fictional Crane never feel that they belong in either the white world or the black world and both travel around the United States and to Europe in search for a place that feels like home. "Quicksand" is an important novel of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the few novels of its time to explore the sexual feelings of women of color. Helga is a lovely and refined woman, a complicated and nuanced character, who is searching for meaning and purpose in her life. She is also far ahead of her time as she is self-reliant, adventurous, and intent on taking her fate into her own hands. This deeply personal story of a woman's difficult search for acceptance and human connection while caught between two worlds remains to this day an insightful and thought-provoking novel. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

In Larsen's second novel, "Passing," first published in 1929, the author revisits the theme of her first novel "Quicksand", that being the struggle for racial identity by children of mixed-race. The novel details the lives of two childhood friends, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield, both of whom are of mixed African and European ancestry and are "passing" as whites. The novel picks up in the lives of the two as they later reunite in adulthood. An ambiguous relation develops between the two as they share a fascination for how each other's lives have transpired since they last knew each other. Larsen's work has been lauded for its exploration of race, gender, class, and sexuality amongst African Americans in early part of the 20th century. Now considered as a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Larsen's writing gives a firsthand insight into the struggle of African Americans during this era. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Originally published: New York: A.A. Knopf, 1928.

In 1920s Harlem, Irene Redfield has a chance reunion with her childhood friend Clare Kendry. Irene is shocked to discover that Clare has been passing as white, sharing a young daughter with a venomously racist white husband. Each woman grows increasingly fascinated with the other's lifestyle, drawn deeper into an arrangement that moves from precarious to tragic.Written by Nella Larsen and published in 1929 during the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, Passing is a mesmeric tale of race, identity, sexuality, and obsession.With a growing number of titles under its Magna Releases banner, CSRC Storytelling promotes and provides positivity, power and presence in print, restoring literary classics across genres and making them newly accessible to modern readers. This edition of Nella Larsen's Passing is a CSRC Storytelling Magna Release.

Published in 1928, Nella Larsen's first novel "Quicksand" regards the story of Helga Crane, the lovely and refined mixed-race daughter of a Danish mother and a West Indian black father. The character is loosely based on Larsen's own experiences and deals with the character's struggle for racial and sexual identity, a theme common to Larsen's work. In Larsen's second novel, "Passing," published in 1929, the author revisits this struggle through the lives of two childhood friends, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield, both of whom are of mixed African and European ancestry and are "passing" as whites. The novel picks up in the lives of the two as they later reunite in adulthood. An ambiguous relation develops between the two as they share a fascination for how each other's lives have transpired since they last knew each other. Larsen's work has been lauded for its exploration of race, gender, class, and sexuality amongst African Americans in early part of the 20th century. Now considered as a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Larsen's writing gives a firsthand insight into the struggle of African Americans during this era. Along with her two novels three of Larsen's short stories, "The Wrong Man," "Freedom," and "Sanctuary" are presented together here in this volume.

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.

VINTAGE CLASSICS' HARLEM RENAISSANCE SERIESCelebrating 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

Irene lever et trygt overklasseliv i 1920’ernes Harlem, men da hun en dag render ind i sin barndomsveninde Clare under et besøg i Chicago, bliver der vendt op og ned på hendes tilværelse.Smukke, charmerende Clare er – ligesom Irene selv – af afroamerikansk afstamning. Begge er de så lyse i huden, at de kan gå for at være hvide, men mens Irene kun gør det, når situationen byder sig, har Clare vendt sit ophav ryggen og giftet sig med en hvid mand.Dobbeltliv er en indlevende historie om to kvinder, der har valgt hver sin vej i tilværelsen, og som i gensynet med hinanden aner en flig af en anden verden.

Now a major Netflix film starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander SkarsgårdChildhood friends Clare and Irene are both light-skinned enough to pass as white, but only one of them has chosen to cross the colour line and live with the secret hanging over her. Clare believes she had successfully cut herself off from any connection to her past. Married to a racist white man who is oblivious to her African-American heritage, it is vital to her that the truth remains hidden. Irene is living as a middle-class Black woman with her husband and children in Harlem, taking on an important role in her community and embracing her origins.Both women are forced to re-examine their relationships with each other, with their husbands and with the truth, confronting their most closely guarded fears. Nella Larsen's powerful, tragic and acutely observant writing established her as a lodestar of America's Harlem Renaissance. Almost a century later, Passing and its nuanced exploration of the many fraught ways in which we seek to survive remains as timely as ever