Nella Larsen – Discovering Parallels to Nella Larsen

by Sushama Austin
Nella Larsen was a Harlem Renaissance novelist, a triumph in a day and age that neither supported her gender nor humanized her race. For contemporary writers, her life and times represent an age when African American female artists are looking for a safe haven. Larsen is an anchor to calm the stormy seas of a new literary renaissance. She is an emblem of all that the Harlem Renaissance was. Her work is a testimony to the bustling, passionate energy of the era.
When I first read Passing I was a sophomore at Fisk University. The small size of the book was a gentle guise for the...