Larsen, Nella (1891–1964)

Nella Larsen was an American novelist active in the 1920s and one of the central figures of ‘Manhattan modernism.’ She is best known for two short novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). While she is now considered a key American modernist writer, both Larsen and her work were unheard of for much of the mid-twentieth-century, only returning to prominence from the 1980s. The ‘rediscovered’ Larsen was initially claimed predominantly by black and feminist schools of criticism; however, Larsen’s passage into the canon has since involved the work of literary critics from almost every field.