Rabeea Saleem

Dark secrets: The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett, reviewed

Bennett’s compelling novel explores the fraught subject of what it means to ‘pass for white’ in a black community

: Brit Bennett. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 18 July 2020

Passé Blanc is the Creole expression — widely used in the US — for black people ‘passing for white’ to seek social and economic privileges otherwise denied them. Brit Bennett has a panoptic approach to racial passing in this intergenerational family saga, which takes us on a 20-year journey into the lives of twin sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes.

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