Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964) was an African-American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote two novels and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote was of extraordinary quality, earning her recognition by her contemporaries and by present day critics.

Quicksand

Nella Larsen's first novel tells the story of Helga Crane, a fictional character clearly based on Larsen herself. Crane is the daughter of a Danish mother and a black father, who goes to various places and communities in search of somewhere she feels her home. Her travels bring her in contact with many of the communities Larsen herself knew: "Naxos", a Southern Negro school based on Tuskegee; Chicago, where her white relatives shun her; Harlem, where she finds a refined but often hypocritical black middle class obsessed with the "race problem"; Copenhagen, where she is treated as a highly desirable racial exotic; and finally the poor deep South, where she is disillusioned by people's blind adherence to religion. In each of these searches, Helga Crane fails to find fulfillment.

Related Topics:
Fictional character - Tuskegee

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The novel also tells the tale of Helga's search for a marriage partner: it opens with her engaged to a prestigious Southern negro man she does not really love, sees her turn down the proposal of a famous European artist, and ends with her seducing and marrying a Southern preacher. The novel's close is deeply pessimistic as Helga Crane sees what began as sexual fulfillment turn into an endless chain of pregnancies and suffering.

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