The New York Times, January 2025
When Helga Crane, the main character in Nella Larsen’s novel “Quicksand,” walked through the streets of Copenhagen, people were amazed. “Her dark, alien appearance was to most people an astonishment,” wrote Larsen, an acclaimed Harlem Renaissance author. “Some stared surreptitiously, some openly, and some stopped dead in front of her in order more fully to profit by their stares.”
More than 90 years after the publication of “Quicksand,” Larsen’s 1928 novel about a mixed-race woman’s unsuccessful journey to find her place in the world, a Black person might not receive a second glance exploring the Danish capital, which has seen a marked rise in the number of immigrants, including from Africa and the Middle East. While some things have changed drastically, many of the sights that Larsen’s fictional Helga Crane came across in Copenhagen remain much the same.
