Nella Larsen was born in Chicago in 1891.  She was the only child of an interracial marriage between a Danish woman, Mary Hanson Walker, and a West Indian man, Peter Walker.  In 1893, her mother quickly remarried after her father’s death.  Her step-father was a man who, like her mother, was Dutch.  Mr. Larson considered Nella’s presence to be an embarrassment and she became an outsider when her half-sister was born.  Finally, he enrolled her in the Fisk Normal School in 1907 as a way to permanently separate Larsen from the family.  Instead of visiting her family on weekends and holidays, she became an avid reader. 

Larsen studied science at Fisk University from 1909-1910.  The years between 1910 and 1912 are considered her “lost years” and it is believed that she moved to Copenhagen.  In 1912, she resurfaced in New York City to attend the nursing program at Lincoln University.  She then moved to Alabama where she became the assistant superintendent of nurses at the prestigious Tuskegee Institute.  Larsen was miserable in the South and she returned to New York City as a Department of Health nurse. 

Larsen's life began to take a different turn in 1919 when she married Elmer Imes, a black physicist, in 1919.  By 1922, she had grown tired of nursing and wanted to work more closely with “the books that she loved”.  She was able to get a job with the New York Public Library.  She was writing in her spare time and was first published in The Brownie’s Book by Jessie Fauset.  Her short story “Correspondence” was published in 1926, and she became a full time writer in the Harlem Renaissance community.  In 1928, she published Quicksand, which was praised by the likes of W.E.B. DuBois, and won a bronze medal from the Harmon Foundation.  She wrote another novel, Passing, in 1929 and was the first black woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing. 

In 1930 she wrote the short story “Sanctuary” for Forum magazine.  It was quickly attacked as work of plagiarism.  Larsen was eventually able to prove her innocence, but was unable to finish another book.  Her troubles continued with her divorce in 1933 (which was highly publicized).  She was crushed by the negative publicity and her appearance in gossip columns.  Suddenly, she informed her friends that she was moving to South America and then vanished for almost 30 years.  In fact, she returned to nursing and lived the rest of her life blocks away in Lower Manhattan under an alias.  She died in 1964.  Much like Zora Neale Hurston, her literary legacy was not appreciated until after her death.
 

Selected Bibliography

Works by the Author
“The Wrong Man” (1926)
“Freedom” (1926)
Quicksand (1928)
Passing (1929)
“Sanctuary” (1930)

Works about the Author
Davis, Thadious.  Nella Larsen: Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1994

Larsen, Charles.  Invisible Darkness: Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen.  Iowa 
City: U of Iowa P, 1993 

Marks, Carole & Diana Edkins. The Power of Pride.  New York: Crown P, 
1999

McLendon, Jacquelyn.  The Politics of Color in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset and 
Nella Larsen.  Charlottesville: UP of Virgina, 1995 
 
 

Related Links
www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/nlarsen.html

www.tesd.k12.pa.us/stoga/dept/Barry/Barry4/lit/Harlem/Prose1.html

www.literarytraveler.com/fall/midwest/larsen.html

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/newsite/authors/LARSENnella.htm

www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/larsen.html

www.geocities.com/Wellesley/7327/modernism.html

www.fatherryan.org/harlemrenaissance/nella.htm

www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/larsenel.htm

www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/L/larsennella/1.html

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/larsen.html
 

This page was researched and submitted by Laura Mann.  Please contact the editor with any questions or suggestions.