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Larsen, Nella (1891–1964).
Nella Larsen, one of the luminaries of the HARLEM
RENAISSANCE, has been praised for her treatment,
particularly in her major works, of the theme of
marginality—the concern with the limits placed
on people’s lives in America because of race and
gender. According to biographer Thadeous Davis,
Larsen’s preoccupation with this theme has more
than a passing connection to her life. Born in Chi-
cago, Illinois, on April 13, 1891, Larsen was the
child of a Danish mother and a West Indian fa-
ther. In spite of her international heritage, how-
ever, Larsen was considered legally black. Clearly
a victim of the constraints of being female and
of mixed heritage in early 20th-century America,
Larsen often thematizes these issues in her work.
With a superior education and a marriage of
some prominence, Larsen moved within the upper
echelons of black society for many years. She en-
tered Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, in
1907, studying in a three-year certificate program
in the normal department. She continued her
studies at the University of Copenhagen, where she
audited classes from 1910 to 1912, before return-
ing to New York City to study nursing at Lincoln
Hospital. She completed these studies in 1915 and,
for a time, worked as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital.
Her marriage to the prominent physicist Elmer
Samuels Imes in 1919 afforded her access to intel-
lectual and high social circles, but it was apparently

unstable throughout its 14 years and ended in a

very public divorce in 1933. During these troubled

years, Larsen took refuge in books and in the com-

pany of a wide circle of Harlem literary associ-

ates, including JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, LANGSTON

HUGHES, JEAN TOOMER, and JESSIE REDMON FAUSET.

She enjoyed the friendship and patronage of WAL-

TER WHITE and CARL VAN VECHTEN as well.

Larsen’s commitment to a career as a writer

seems to have fermented between 1922 and 1926,

when she worked as a librarian with the New York

Public Library. Although she had published two

“Playtime” articles for children for Brownies’ Book

in 1920, Larsen generated critical attention when

her short story “Correspondence” was published in

OPPORTUNITY magazine in September 1926. How-

ever, her major works remain Quicksand (1928)

and Passing (1929), which critics generally agree

are largely autobiographical. The central theme of

both works is the intersection of race and gender.

Although Larsen’s short story “Sanctuary”

(1930) led to her becoming the first woman of Af-

rican-American descent to receive a Guggenheim

Fellowship, she was charged with plagiarizing the

story. She responded forthrightly to the charge

in an essay published in Forum in April 1930. Al-

though cleared of the charge, Larsen’s career as a

writer, if not her writer’s “heart,” seemed irrepa-

rably damaged. She returned to nursing for a live-

lihood, withdrawing from her former social and

L