Caucasia -- Danzy Senna, Paperback

"Superbly illustrates the emotional toll that politics and race take ... Haunting." --The New York Times Book Review

Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston. The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie's confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself. Then their parents' marriage collapses. One night Birdie watches her father and his new girlfriend drive away with Cole. Soon Birdie and her mother are on the road as well, drifting across the country in search of a new home. But for Birdie, home will always be Cole. Haunted by the loss of her sister, she sets out a desperate search for the family that left her behind.

The extraordinary national bestseller that launched Danzy Senna's literary career, Caucasia is a modern classic, at once a powerful coming of age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America.

Author: Danzy Senna
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 02/01/1999
Pages: 432
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.25w x 0.95d
ISBN: 9781573227162
Age Range: 18-UP

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 6.1
Point Value: 23
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 35202 / Caucasia


Review Citation(s):
New York Times 03/14/1999 pg. 36
Booklist 04/01/1999 pg. 1401
Booklist 02/15/2000 pg. 1096

About the Author
Danzy Senna's first novel, Caucasia, was the winner of the Book-of-the-Month Club's Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and an American Library Association Alex Award. It was a finalist for an International IMPAC Dublin Award, and was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Her short fiction and essays have been widely anthologized. She is a recipient of the 2002 Whiting Writers' Award and currently holds the Jenks Chair of Contemporary American/Letters at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.