Nella Larsen Publishes 'Quicksand'—A Masterwork of Black Women's Fiction

Nella Larsen published 'Quicksand' in 1928, a psychologically sophisticated novel about Helga Crane, a biracial woman searching for identity in Harlem, Copenhagen, and the American South. The novel won the Harmon Foundation Bronze Medal for literature and was praised by W.E.B. Du Bois. 'Quicksand' stands alongside 'Passing' as a foundational text of Black women's literary modernism, exploring interior experience with unprecedented honesty.