ABSTRACT
Hiding in words between spaces, the duplicitous text can be found. And concealed in the spaces between words is the subtext of desire which, for the contemporary race-and lesbian-conscious reader, offers a somewhat clandestine look into the machinations of Black American writing in the late 1920s. Passing, by Nella Larsen, is the catalyst for this chapter. Written in 1929, this novella captures certain essences of life-style politics which are pertinent to multifaceted British society today. Larsen’s part African-Caribbean, part Danish parentage, and her sharing of a North American cultural identity, surely informs her literary experience, creativity and thinking. Her cultural ‘make-up’ makes reference to the cultural ‘mixed-raceness’ of some Black, Asian and ‘white’ British people and adds to the sparse documentation of mixed-race role models. To now have access to her writings, which detail an important and rare angle from which sexuality and ‘race’ is positioned, is refreshing.
