NPR’s monthly You Must Read This series on NPR’s All Things Considered, presents authors passionately recommending books they love.

Last night, Heidi Durrow, whose first novel The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is heavily reserved in many libraries, talked about one of her favorites, Passing, by Nella Larsen, a prominent writer during the Harlem Renaissance, who later died in obscurity.

Durrow, who is the daughter of an African American father and a Danish mother, says,

Passing is among my favorite books because it’s about being defined by what other people see and the desire to transcend that.

You may not identify with being a light-skinned African-American, but you have probably felt at some point that what was most important about you wasn’t visible.

The book is available in several editions, including this mass market paperback with a strikingly modern cover:

Passing Nella Larsen Retail Price: $6.99 Paperback: 84 pages Publisher: Wilder Publications – (2010-02-25) ISBN / EAN: 1604599944 / 9781604599947

And a trade paperback from Penguin, with a cover more reflective of the harlem Renaissance:

Passing (Penguin Classics) Nella Larsen Retail Price: $11.00 Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: Penguin Classics – (2003-02-04) ISBN / EAN: 0142437271 / 9780142437278

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 9:28 am and is filed under Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.