View source for Nella Larsen

{{Short description|American novelist (1891–1964)}}
{{use mdy dates|date=September 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Nella Larsen
| image              = NellaLarsen1928.jpg
| caption            = Larsen in 1928
| birth_name         = Nellie Walker
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1891|04|13}}
| birth_place        = [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1964|03|30|1891|04|13}}
| death_place        = [[New York City]], U.S.
| other_names        = Nellye Larson<br>Nellie Larsen<br>Nella Larsen Imes
| education          = [[Fisk University]]<br>[[University of Copenhagen]]<br>[[Lincoln Hospital (Bronx)|Lincoln Hospital]]<br>[[New York Public Library]]
| occupation         = {{hlist|Novelist|librarian|nurse}}
| years_active       = 
| notable_works      = ''[[Quicksand (Larsen novel)|Quicksand]]'' (1928)<br>''[[Passing (novel)|Passing]]'' (1929)
| movement           = [[Harlem Renaissance]]
| spouse             = {{marriage|[[Elmer Imes]]|1919|1933|reason=divorced}}
| awards             = [[Guggenheim Fellowship]]
}}

'''Nellallitea''' "'''Nella'''" '''Larsen''' (born '''Nellie Walker'''; April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964) was an American novelist. Working as a nurse and a librarian, she published two novels, ''[[Quicksand (Larsen novel)|Quicksand]]'' (1928) and ''[[Passing (novel)|Passing]]'' (1929), and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, she earned recognition by her contemporaries.

A revival of interest in her writing has occurred since the late 20th century, when issues of racial and [[sexual identity]] have been studied. Her works have been the subjects of numerous academic studies, and she is now widely lauded as "not only the premier novelist of the [[Harlem Renaissance]], but also an important figure in American [[modernism]]."<ref name="Bone 2011 pp.659">Bone, Martyn (2011), "Nella Larsen", in ''The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction'', Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 658–659.</ref>

==Early life==
Nella Larsen was born Nellie Walker, in a poor district of [[South Side, Chicago|south Chicago]] known as [[The Levee, Chicago|the Levee]], on April 13, 1891 (though Larsen would frequently claim to have been born in 1893).<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|pages=15, 64}} Her mother was Pederline Marie Hansen, an ethnically [[Danish-American|Danish immigrant]], probably born in 1868, possibly in [[Schleswig-Holstein]].<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|pages=17–18}} Migrating to the USA around 1886 and going by the name Mary, Larsen's mother worked as a seamstress and domestic worker in Chicago.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|pages=18}} She died in 1951 in [[Santa Monica, California|Santa Monica]], [[Los Angeles County]].<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=472}}<ref name="Pinckney">Pinckney, Darryl, "Shadows" (review of ''In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line'', by George Hutchinson), ''Nation'' 283, no. 3 (July 17, 2006), pp. 26–28.</ref>

Larsen's father was Peter Walker, believed to be a [[mixed-race]] [[Afro-Caribbean]] immigrant from the [[Danish West Indies]]. Walker and Hansen obtained a marriage license in 1890, but may never have married.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=20}} Walker was probably a descendant on his paternal side of Henry or George Walker, white men from [[Albany, New York]], who were known to have settled in the Danish West Indies in about 1840.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20">Hutchinson, George (2006), [https://books.google.com/books/about/In_search_of_Nella_Larsen.html?id=kJ3M6QsS9k4C ''In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line''], Harvard University Press.</ref>{{Rp|pages=19–20}} In the Danish West Indies, the law did not recognise racial difference, and racial lines were more fluid than in the [[Slave states and free states|former slave states]] of the United States. Walker may never have identified as "Negro."<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20"/>{{Rp|pages=19–20}} He soon disappeared from the lives of Nella and her mother; she said he had died when she was very young. At this time, Chicago was filled with immigrants, but the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] of blacks from the South had not begun. Near the end of Walker's childhood, the black population of the city was 1.3% in 1890 and 2% in 1910.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|pages=15–16}}

Marie then married Peter Larsen (aka Larson, b. 1867), a fellow Danish immigrant. In 1892 the couple had a daughter, Anna Elizabeth, also known as Lizzie (married name Gardner).<ref name="Pinckney"/> Nellie took her stepfather's surname, sometimes using versions spelled Nellye Larson and Nellie Larsen, before settling finally on Nella Larsen.<ref name=Nakachi>Sachi Nakachi, [http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?ohiou1005675005 ''Mixed-Race Identity Politics in Nella Larsen and Winnifred Eaton (Onoto Watanna)''], doctoral dissertation [[Ohio University]], p. 14. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930153619/http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?ohiou1005675005 |date=September 30, 2007 }}. Accessed October 27, 2006.</ref> The [[Interracial marriage|mixed family]] moved west to a mostly white neighborhood of German and Scandinavian immigrants, but encountered discrimination because of Nella. When Nella was eight years old, they moved a few blocks back east.

The American author and critic [[Darryl Pinckney]] wrote of her anomalous situation:
<blockquote>as a member of a white immigrant family, she [Larsen] had no entrée into the world of the [[blues]] or of the [[black church]]. If she could never be white like her mother and sister, neither could she ever be black in quite the same way that [[Langston Hughes]] and his characters were black. Hers was a netherworld, unrecognizable historically and too painful to dredge up.<ref name="Pinckney"/></blockquote>

From 1895 to 1898, Larsen lived in Denmark with her mother and her half-sister.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=31}} While she was unusual in Denmark because of being of mixed race, she had some good memories from that time, including playing Danish children’s games, which she later wrote about in English. After returning to Chicago in 1898, she attended a large public school. At the same time as the migration of Southern blacks increased to the city, so had European immigration. [[Racial segregation in the United States|Racial segregation]] and tensions had increased in the immigrant neighborhoods, where both groups competed for jobs and housing.

Her mother believed that education could give Larsen an opportunity and supported her in attending [[Fisk University]], a [[historically black colleges and universities|historically black university]] in [[Nashville, Tennessee]]. A student there in 1907–08, for the first time Larsen was living within an African-American community, but she was still separated by her own background and life experiences from most of the students, who were primarily from the South, with most descended from former slaves. Biographer [[George B. Hutchinson]] established that Larsen was expelled, along with ten other women, inferring that this was for some violation of Fisk's strict dress or conduct codes for women.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|pages=62–63}} Larsen went on her own to Denmark, where she lived for a total of three years, between 1909 and 1912, and attended the [[University of Copenhagen]].<ref>[[Margaret Busby|Busby, Margaret]] (ed.), "Nella Larsen", in ''[[Daughters of Africa]]'', London: Vintage, 1993, p. 200.</ref> After returning to the United States, she continued to struggle to find a place where she could belong.<ref name="Pinckney"/>

==Nursing career==
In 1914, Larsen enrolled in the [[Lincoln School for Nurses|nursing school]] at New York City's [[Lincoln Hospital (Bronx)|Lincoln Hospital and Nursing Home]]. The institution was founded in the 19th century in [[Manhattan]] as a nursing home to serve black people, but the hospital elements had grown in importance. The total operation had been relocated to a newly constructed campus in the [[South Bronx]]. At the time, the hospital patients were primarily white; the nursing home patients were primarily black; the doctors were white males; and the nurses and nursing students were black females.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=6}} As Pinckney writes: "No matter what situation Larsen found herself in, racial irony of one kind or another invariably wrapped itself around her."<ref name="Pinckney"/>

Upon graduating in 1915, Larsen went South to work at the [[Tuskegee Institute]] in [[Tuskegee, Alabama]], where she soon became head nurse at its [[John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital]] and training school.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers|last=Williams|first=Yolanda|pages=351–352}}</ref> While at Tuskegee, she was introduced to [[Booker T. Washington]]'s model of education and became disillusioned with it. As it was combined with poor working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee, Larsen decided to leave after a year or so.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Stephens |first=Bria Stephens |date=2017 |title=Nella Larsen: An Untold Story of Race through Literature |url=https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=hon_thesis |page=16 |publisher=[[Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College]] |access-date=8 November 2024}}</ref>

She returned to New York in 1916, where she worked for two years as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital. After earning the second-highest score on a civil service exam, Larsen was hired by the city Bureau of Public Health as a nurse. She worked for them in [[the Bronx]] through the [[Spanish flu|1918 flu pandemic]], in "mostly white neighborhoods" and with white colleagues. Afterwards she continued with the city as a nurse.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=7}}

==Marriage and family==
In 1919, Larsen married [[Elmer Imes]], a prominent physicist; he was the second African American to earn a PhD in [[physics]]. After her marriage, she sometimes used the name Nella Larsen Imes in her writing. A year after her marriage, she published her first short stories.

The couple moved to [[Harlem]] in the 1920s, where their marriage and life together had contradictions of class. As Pinckney writes:

<blockquote>By virtue of her marriage, she was a member of Harlem's black professional class, many of them people of color with partially European ancestry. She and her husband knew the [[NAACP]] leadership: [[W.E.B. Du Bois]], [[Walter Francis White|Walter White]], [[James Weldon Johnson]]. However, because of her low birth and mixed parentage, and because she did not have a college degree, Larsen was alienated from the black middle class, whose members emphasized college and family ties, and black fraternities and sororities.<ref name="Pinckney"/></blockquote>

Her mixed racial ancestry was not itself unusual in the black middle class. But many of these individuals, such as [[Langston Hughes]], had more distant European ancestors. He and others formed an elite of mixed race or people of color, some of whom had ancestors who had been [[free people of color]] well before the [[American Civil War]]. This had given many families an advantage in establishing themselves and gaining educations in the North. In the 1920s, most African Americans in Harlem were exploring and emphasizing their black heritage.

Imes's scientific studies and achievement placed him in a different class than Larsen. The Imes couple had difficulties by the late 1920s, when he had an affair with a white woman at Fisk University, where he was a professor. Imes and Larsen would divorce in 1933.<ref name="Pinckney"/><ref name="Nakachi"/>

==Librarian and literary career==
[[File:NYPL Seward Park Branch, Manhattan.jpg|thumb|Seward Park Library where Larsen worked]]
In 1921, Larsen worked nights and weekends as a volunteer with librarian [[Ernestine Rose (librarian)|Ernestine Rose]], to help prepare for the first exhibit of "Negro art" at the [[New York Public Library]] (NYPL). Encouraged by Rose, she became the first black woman to graduate from the NYPL Library School. It was run by [[Columbia University]] and opened the way for integration of library staff.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp. 8-9">Hutchinson (2006), pp. 8–9.</ref>

Larsen passed her certification exam in 1923. She worked her first year as a librarian at the Seward Park Branch on the [[Lower East Side]], which was predominantly Jewish. There she had strong support from her white supervisor Alice Keats O'Connor, as she had from Rose. They, and another branch supervisor where she worked, supported Larsen and helped integrate the staff of the branches.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp. 8-9"/> Larsen transferred to the [[New York Public Library Schomburg Center|Harlem branch]], as she was interested in the cultural excitement in the [[African-American neighborhood]], a destination for migrants from across the country.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp. 8-9"/>

In October 1925, Larsen took a sabbatical from her job for health reasons and began to write her first novel.<ref>[[Henry Louis Gates]], [[Nellie Y. McKay]] (eds), ''The Norton Anthology of African American Literature'', 2004, p. 1085.</ref> In 1926, having made friends with important figures in the Negro Awakening (which became known as the [[Harlem Renaissance]]), Larsen gave up her work as a librarian.<ref name="Pinckney2018">{{Cite web |url=https://lithub.com/passing-for-white-a-literary-history/ |title=Passing for White: A Literary History |last=Pinckney |first=Darryl |date=October 15, 2018 |website=[[Literary Hub]] |access-date=March 17, 2024 |language=en-US}}</ref> She published short fiction under the pseudonym "Allen Semi" (an anagram of her married name, Nella Imes) in 1926.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McLendon |first=Jacquelyn |title=Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen |isbn=9781603292191 |pages=4}}</ref>

She became a writer active in Harlem's interracial literary and arts community, where she became friends with [[Carl Van Vechten]], a white photographer and writer.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=9}} In 1928, Larsen published [[Quicksand (Larsen novel)|''Quicksand'']], a largely autobiographical novel. It received significant critical acclaim, if not great financial success.<ref name="Atlas2018">{{Cite web |url=https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/larsen-nella/ |title=Nella Larsen, Author of Passing & Quicksand |last=Atlas |first=Nava |date=March 15, 2018 |website=LiteraryLadiesGuide.com |access-date=March 17, 2024 |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1929, she published ''[[Passing (novel)|Passing]]'', her second novel, which was also critically successful. It dealt with issues of two mixed-race African-American women who were childhood friends and had taken different paths of racial identification and marriage. One identified as black and married a black doctor; the other passed as white and married a white man, without revealing her African ancestry. The book explored their experiences of coming together again as adults.<ref name="Atlas2018" />

In 1930, Larsen published "Sanctuary", a short story for which she was accused of [[plagiarism]].<ref>J. Diesman, [http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/sanctuary.html "Sanctuary"], Northern Kentucky University. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051102172636/http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/sanctuary.html |date=November 2, 2005 }}</ref> "Sanctuary" was said to resemble the British writer [[Sheila Kaye-Smith]]'s short story, "Mrs. Adis", first published in the [[United Kingdom]] in 1919. Kaye-Smith wrote on rural themes, and was very popular in the US. Some critics thought the basic plot of "Sanctuary," and some of the descriptions and dialogue, were virtually identical to Kaye-Smith's work.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Larson|first=Kelli A.|date=October 30, 2007|title=Surviving the Taint of Plagiarism: Nella Larsen's 'Sanctuary' and Sheila Kaye-Smith's 'Mrs. Adis'|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/222941|journal=Journal of Modern Literature|language=en|volume=30|issue=4|pages=82–104|issn=1529-1464|doi=10.2979/JML.2007.30.4.82|s2cid=162216389|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The scholar H. Pearce has disputed this assessment, writing that, compared to Kaye-Smith's tale, "Sanctuary" is "... longer, better written and more explicitly political, specifically around issues of race – rather than class as in 'Mrs Adis'."<ref>Pearce, H. (2003), "Mrs Adis & Sanctuary", ''The Gleam'': Journal of the Sheila Kaye-Smith Society, No. 16.</ref> Pearce thinks that Larsen reworked and updated the tale into a modern American black context. Pearce also notes that in Kaye-Smith's 1956 book, ''All the Books of My Life'', the author said she had based "Mrs Adis" on a 17th-century story by [[Francis de Sales|St Francis de Sales]], Catholic bishop of Geneva. It is unknown whether she knew of the Larsen controversy in the United States. Larsen herself said the story came to her as "almost [[Folklore|folk-lore]]", recounted to her by a patient when she was a nurse.<ref name="Hathaway">Hathaway, Rosemary V., "‘Almost Folklore’: The Legend That Killed Nella Larsen's Literary Career,” ''The Journal of American Folklore,'' 130, no. 517 (Summer 2017), pp. 255–275.</ref>

No plagiarism charges were proved. Larsen received a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] even in the aftermath of the controversy, worth roughly $2,500 at the time, and was the first African-American woman to do so.<ref name="Wertheim">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-nella-larsen.html|title=Nella Larsen Wrestled With Race and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance|last=Wertheim|first=Bonnie|date=March 8, 2018|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=January 17, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> She used it to travel to Europe for several years, spending time in [[Mallorca]] and [[Paris]], where she worked on a novel about a [[love triangle]] in which all the protagonists were white. She never published the book or any other works.

==Later life==

Larsen returned to New York in 1937, when her divorce had been completed. She was given a generous alimony in the divorce, which gave her the financial security she needed until Imes's death in 1941.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=American Nursing: A History of Knowledge, Authority, and the Meaning of Work|last=D'Antonio|first=Patricia|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0801895654|location=Johns Hopkins University|pages=3}}</ref> Struggling with [[depression (mood)|depression]], Larsen stopped writing. After her ex-husband's death, Larsen returned to nursing and became an administrator. She disappeared from literary circles. She lived on the [[Lower East Side]] and did not venture to Harlem.<ref name="P30">Pinckney, p. 30.</ref>

Many of her old acquaintances speculated that she, like some of the characters in her fiction, had crossed the color line to "[[passing (racial identity)|pass]]" into the white community. Biographer George Hutchinson has demonstrated in his 2006 work that she remained in New York, working as a nurse.

Some literary scholars have engaged in speculation and interpretation of Larsen's decision to return to nursing, viewing her decision to take time off from writing as "an act of self-burial, or a 'retreat' motivated by a lack of courage and dedication."<ref name=":0" /> What they overlooked is that during that time period, it was difficult for a woman of color to find a stable job that would also provide financial stability. For Larsen, nursing was a "labor market that welcomed an African American as a domestic servant".<ref name=":0" /> Nursing had been something that came naturally to Larsen as it was "one respectable option for support during the process of learning about the work."<ref name=":0" /> During her work as a nurse, Larsen was noticed by [[Adah Belle Thoms|Adah Thoms]], an African-American nurse who co-founded the [[National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses]]. Thoms had seen potential in Larsen's nursing career and helped strengthen Larsen's skills. When Larsen graduated in 1915, it was Adah Thoms who had made arrangements for Larsen to work at Tuskegee Institute's hospital.

Larsen draws from her medical background in ''Passing'' to create the character of Brian, a doctor and husband of the main character. Larsen describes Brian as being ambivalent about his work in the medical field. Brian's character may also be partially modeled on Larsen's husband [[Elmer Imes]], a physicist. After Imes divorced Larsen, he was closely associated with Ethel Gilbert, Fisk Director of public relations and manager of the [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]], although it is unclear if the two married.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/american-literature-biographies/elmer-samuel-imes|title=Elmer Samuel Imes {{!}} Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com|access-date=April 14, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://epdf.pub/american-writers-supplement-xviii.html|title=American Writers, Supplement XVIII - PDF Free Download|website=epdf.pub|language=en|access-date=April 14, 2020}}</ref>

Larsen died in her [[Brooklyn]] apartment in 1964, at the age of 72.<ref>{{cite book |last1= McDonald|first1= C. Ann|editor1-first= Laurie|editor1-last= Champion |title= American Women Writers, 1900–1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Qltu-Bw0hcUC&q=Nella%20Larsen%201964&pg=PP1|access-date= July 7, 2010 |year= 2000 |publisher= Greenwood Press|location= Westport, CT |isbn= 0-313-30943-4|pages= 182–191|chapter= Nella Larsen (1891–1964)|chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Qltu-Bw0hcUC&q=Nella+Larsen+1964&pg=PA184}}</ref>

==Legacy ==
In 2018, ''[[The New York Times]]'' published a belated obituary for her.<ref>{{cite news |last=Wertheim |first=Bonnie |date=March 8, 2018 |title=Nella Larsen (1891-1964) |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-nella-larsen.html}}</ref> She was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hutchinson |first=George |date=2022 |title=Nella Larsen |url=https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/inductees/profile/nella-larsen# |archive-url=|access-date=2024-02-09 |website=Chicago Literary Hall of Fame}}</ref>

Nella Larsen was an acclaimed novelist, who wrote stories in the midst on the Harlem Renaissance. Larsen is most known for her two novels, ''Quicksand'' and ''Passing''; these two pieces of work got much recognition with positive reviews. Many believed that Larsen was a rising star as an African American novelist, until she soon after left Harlem, her fame, and writing behind.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wall|first=Cheryl A.|date=1986|title=Passing for what? Aspects of Identity in Nella Larsen's Novels|journal=Black American Literature Forum|volume=20|issue=1/2|pages=97–111|doi=10.2307/2904554|issn=0148-6179|jstor=2904554}}</ref>

Larsen is often compared to other authors who also wrote about cultural and racial conflict such as [[Claude Mckay]] and [[Jean Toomer]].

Nella Larsen's works are viewed as strong pieces that well represent mixed-race individuals and the struggles with identity that some inevitably face.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/murphy16/2016/04/10/passing-in-race/|title=Passing in Race – The Peopling of New York City|website=eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu|date=April 10, 2016 |access-date=May 21, 2019}}</ref>

There have been some arguments that Larsen’s work did not well represent the "[[New Negro]]" movement because of the main characters in her novels being confused and struggling with their race. However, others argue that her work was a raw and important representation of how life was for many people, especially women, during the Harlem Renaissance.

Larsen's novel ''Passing'' was adapted as a [[Passing (film)|2021 film of the same name]] by [[Rebecca Hall]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wilkinson|first=Alissa|date=November 10, 2021|title=How Netflix's adaptation of Passing reflects the novel's time — and ours|url=https://www.vox.com/22770529/passing-netflix-tessa-thompson-ruth-negga-nella-larsen-rebecca-hall|access-date=2021-11-10|website=Vox|language=en}}</ref>

==Works==

===1928: ''Quicksand''===
{{main|Quicksand (Nella Larsen novel)}}
Helga Crane is a fictional character loosely based on Larsen's experiences in her early life.  Crane is the lovely and refined [[mixed-race]] daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father.  Her father died soon after she was born. Unable to feel comfortable with her maternal European-American relatives, Crane lives in various places in the United States and visits Denmark, searching for people among whom she feels at home. As writer [[Amina Gautier]] points out, "in a mere 135 pages, Larsen details five different geographical spaces and each space Helga Crane moves to or through alludes to a different stage in her emotional and psychological growth."<ref>Gautier, Amina, [https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/guest-blog-writer-amina-gautier-on-nella-larsen], “Nella Larsen’s Chicago,” Chicago Public Library Blog, April 3, 2015. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927070838/https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/guest-blog-writer-amina-gautier-on-nella-larsen/|date=September 27, 2015}}</ref>

Nella Larsen's early life is similar to Helga's in that she was distant from the African-American community, including her African-American family members. Larsen and Helga did not have father figures. Both of their mothers decided to marry a white man with the hope of having a higher social status. Larsen wanted to learn more about her background so she continued to go to school during the Harlem Renaissance. Even though Larsen's early life parallels Helga's, in adulthood, their life choices end up being very different. Nella Larsen pursued a career in nursing while Helga married a preacher and stayed in a very unhappy marriage.<ref name=":1" />

In her travels, she encounters many of the communities that Larsen knew. For example, Crane teaches at Naxos, a Southern Negro boarding school (based on [[Tuskegee University]]), where she becomes dissatisfied with its philosophy. She criticizes a sermon by a white preacher, who advocates the [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]] of blacks into separate schools and says their striving for social equality would lead blacks to become avaricious. Crane quits teaching and moves to [[Chicago]]. Her white maternal uncle, now married to a bigoted woman, shuns her. Crane moves to [[Harlem]]<nowiki>, New York, where she finds a refined but often hypocritical black middle class obsessed with the "race problem."</nowiki><ref name="Atlas2018_2">{{Cite web |url=https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/book-reviews/quicksand-nella-larsen-1928/ |title=Quicksand by Nella Larsen (1928) |last=Atlas |first=Nava |date=March 15, 2018 |website=LiteraryLadiesGuide.com |access-date=March 19, 2024 |language=en-US}}</ref>

Taking her uncle's legacy, Crane visits her maternal aunt in [[Copenhagen]]. There she is treated as an attractive racial exotic.<ref name="Wertheim"/> Missing black people, she returns to New York City.  Close to a mental breakdown, Crane happens onto a store-front revival and has a charismatic religious experience. After marrying the preacher who converted her, she moves with him to the rural [[Deep South]]. There she is disillusioned by the people's adherence to religion. In each of her moves, Crane fails to find fulfillment. She is looking for more than how to integrate her mixed ancestry. She expresses complex feelings about what she and her friends consider genetic differences between races.<ref name="Atlas2018_2" />

The novel develops Crane's search for a marriage partner. As it opens, she has become engaged to marry a prominent Southern Negro man, whom she does not really love, but with whom she can gain social benefits. In Denmark she turns down the proposal of a famous white Danish artist for similar reasons, for lack of feeling. By the final chapters, Crane has married a black Southern preacher. The novel's close is deeply pessimistic. Crane had hoped to find sexual fulfillment in marriage and some success in helping the poor Southern blacks she lives among, but instead she has frequent pregnancies and suffering. Disillusioned with religion, her husband, and her life, Crane fantasizes about leaving her husband, but never does. "She sinks into a slough of disillusionment and indifference. She tries to fight her way back to her own world, but she is too weak, and circumstances are too strong."<ref name="Girl">"A Mulatto Girl” [a review of ''Quicksand'' by Nella Larsen], ''The New York Times Book Review,'' April 28, 1928, pp. 16–17.</ref>

The critics were impressed with the novel.<ref name="Wertheim" /> They appreciated her more indirect take on important topics such as race, class, sexuality, and other issues important to the African-American community rather than the explicit or obvious take of other Harlem Renaissance writers.<ref name=":1" /> For example, the ''New York Times'' reviewer found it "an articulate, sympathetic first novel" which demonstrated an understanding that "a novelist's business is primarily with individuals and not with classes."<ref name="Girl"/> The novel also won Larsen a bronze prize (second place) for literature in 1928 from the [[William E. Harmon Foundation]].<ref name="Johnson2007">{{cite web |url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/larsen-nella-1891-1963/ |title=Nella Larsen (1891-1963) |website=[[BlackPast.org]] |last=Johnson |first=Doris Richardson |date=19 January 2007 |access-date=19 March 2024}}</ref>

===1929: ''Passing''===
{{main|Passing (novel)}} Larsen's novel&nbsp;''Passing''&nbsp; begins with Irene receiving a mysterious letter from her childhood friend Clare, following their encounter at the Drayton Hotel, after twelve years with no communication. Irene and Clare lost contact with each other after the death of Clare's father Bob Kendry, when Clare was sent to live with her white aunts. Both Irene and Clare are of mixed African-European ancestry, with features that enable them to pass racially as white if they choose. Clare chose to pass into white society and married John Bellew, a white man who is a racist. Unlike Clare, Irene passes as white only on occasion for convenience, in order be served in a segregated restaurant, for example. Irene identifies as a black woman and married an African-American doctor named Brian; together they have two sons. After Irene and Clare reconnect, they become fascinated with the differences in their lives. One day Irene meets with Clare and Gertrude, another of their childhood African-American friends; during that meeting Mr. Bellew meets Irene and Gertrude. Bellew greets his wife with a racist pet name, although he doesn't know that she is partially black.<ref name="Larsen2007">{{Cite book|title=Passing|last=Larsen|first=Nella|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|year=2007|location=New York}}</ref>

Irene becomes furious that Clare did not tell her husband about her full ancestry. Irene believes Clare has put herself in a dangerous situation by lying to a person who hates blacks. After meeting Clare's husband, Irene does not want anything more to do with Clare but still keeps in touch with her. Clare begins to join Irene and Brian for their events in Harlem, New York while her husband is traveling out of town. Because Irene has some jealousy of Clare, she begins to suspect her friend is having an affair with her husband Brian. The novel ends with John Bellew learning that Clare is of mixed race. At a party in Harlem, she falls out of a window from a high floor of a multi-story building, to her death, in ambiguous circumstances. Larsen ends the novel without revealing if Clare committed suicide, if Irene or her husband pushed her, or if it was an accident.<ref name="Larsen2007" />

The novel was well received by the few critics who reviewed it. Writer and scholar [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] hailed it as "one of the finest novels of the year."<ref>Du Bois, W. E. B. (1929), "Passing", in ''The Crisis'' 36, no. 7. Reprinted in Larson, Nella. ''Passing'' (2007), ed. by Carla Kaplan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 85.</ref>

Some later critics described the novel as an example of the genre of the [[tragic mulatto]], a common figure in early [[African-American literature]] after the [[American Civil War]]. In such works, it is usually a woman of mixed race who is portrayed as tragic, as she has difficulty marrying and finding a place to fit into society.<ref>Pilgrim, David (2000). "The Tragic Mulatto Myth". Jim Crow: Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Ferris State University. Retrieved June 26, 2012.</ref> Others suggest that this novel complicates that plot by playing with the duality of the figures of Irene and Clare, who are of similar mixed-race background but have taken different paths in life. The novel also suggests attraction between them and erotic undertones in the two women's relationship.<ref name="AldrichWotherspoon2001">{{cite book|author1=Robert Aldrich|author2=Garry Wotherspoon|title=Who's who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=giM73n_lca4C&pg=PA255|year=2001|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-15982-1|pages=255–}}</ref> Irene's husband is also portrayed as potentially bisexual, as if the characters are passing in their sexual as well as social identities. Some read the novel as one of repression. Others argue that through its attention to the way "passing" unhinges ideas of race, class, and gender, the novel opens spaces for the creation of new, self-generated identities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Szafran |first=Dani| date=June 21, 2021 |title=Color and Descriptors to see a Deeper Meaning in "Passing" |url=https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1124&context=anthos |journal=Anthós |language=en |volume=10 |issue=1 |page=64 |doi=10.15760/anthos.2021.10.1.8 |access-date=18 March 2024|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Since the late 20th century, ''Passing'' has received renewed attention from scholars because of its close examination of racial and sexual ambiguities and [[Liminality|liminal]] spaces.<ref name="AldrichWotherspoon2001"/> It has achieved [[Canon (literary)|canonical]] status in many American universities.<ref>{{cite book|title=Passing|last=Kaplan|first=Carla|publisher=Norton|year=2007|editor-last=Larsen|editor-first=Nella|contribution=Introduction}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=66606242}}

===Books===
* ''[[Quicksand (Larsen novel)|Quicksand]]'' (1928)
* ''[[Passing (novel)|Passing]]'' (1929)

===Short stories===
* "Freedom" (1926)
* "The Wrong Man" (1926)
* "Playtime: Three Scandinavian Games", ''The Brownies' Book'', 1 (June 1920): 191&ndash;192.
* "Playtime: Danish Fun", ''The Brownies' Book'', 1 (July 1920): 219.
* "Sanctuary", ''Forum'', 83 (January 1930): 15&ndash;18.

===Non-fiction===
* "Correspondence", ''Opportunity'', 4 (September 1926): 295.
* "Review of Black Spade," ''Opportunity'', 7 (January 1929): 24.
* "The Author's Explanation", ''Forum,'' Supplement 4, 83 (April 1930): 41&ndash;42.<ref>[http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/guides/nlarsen.html "Nella Larsen"], ''Selected Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance: A Resource Guide'', Northern Kentucky University, listing of short stories; accessed February 15, 2012.</ref>

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
* Hutchinson, George (2006), [https://books.google.com/books/about/In_search_of_Nella_Larsen.html?id=kJ3M6QsS9k4C ''In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line''], Harvard University Press.
* Pearce, H. (2003), "Mrs Adis & Sanctuary", ''The Gleam: Journal of the Sheila Kaye-Smith Society'', No. 16.
* [[Darryl Pinckney|Pinckney, Darryl]], [http://www.thenation.com/article/shadows/ "Shadows"], ''The Nation'', July 17/24, 2006, pp.&nbsp;26–30. Review: Hutchinson's ''In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line''.
* {{cite book |editor=Robert Aldrich |editor2=Garry Wotherspoon
  | title = Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II
  | publisher = Routledge|location= London | year = 2002 | isbn = 0-415-15983-0}}

==Further reading==

* Clark Barwick, [https://iu.tind.io/record/3320 "A History of ''Passing''"], ''South Atlantic Review'' 84.2–3 (2019): 24–54.
* [[Thadious M. Davis]] (1994), ''Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance: A Woman's Life Unveiled'' (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press).
*George Hutchinson, ''In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006).
*Deborah E. McDowell, "Introduction", in Deborah E. McDowell (ed.), ''Quicksand and Passing: Nella Larsen'' (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986), ix–xxxv.
*Martha J. Cutter, "Sliding Significations: Passing as a Narrative and Textual Strategy in Nella Larsen's Fiction", in Elaine Ginsberg (ed.), ''Passing and the Fictions of Identity'', Duke University Press, 1996, pp.&nbsp;75–100.
* Nikki Hall, "Passing, Present, Future: The Intersectional Prescience of Nella Larsen's 1929 Classic", in ''Bitch'' magazine (Re)Vision issue, Winter 2015.
* [[Sheila Kaye-Smith]] (1956), ''All the Books of My Life'', London: Cassell, 1956.
* Charles R. Larson (1993), ''Invisible Darkness: Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen''.
* Bonnie Wertheim, [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-nella-larsen.html "Nella Larsen, 1891–1964"], ''The New York Times'', March 8, 2018.

==External links==
{{Portal|Biography|United States|New York City
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*{{commons category-inline}}
*{{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{wikisource author-inline}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/nella-larsen}}
* {{Librivox author |id=1301}}
* [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000536779 ''Quicksand''], scanned original edition at Hathi Trust 
* [https://archive.org/details/passing00lars ''Passing''] at the [[Internet Archive]] (scanned book original edition)
* [http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/larsen.html "Nella Larsen"], links, secondary bibliography, Washington State University

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