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Caucasia book5/12/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Her mother holds secret meetings in their basement, and her father gives his daughters lessons in Afrocentrism. As Birdie gets older, she becomes aware of her parents’ political activities. The sisters develop a language called Elemeno that only they can understand. The first chapter describes Birdie’s close relationship with her older sister Cole, who she sees as a reflection of herself. The novel begins with a short introduction that foreshadows Birdie’s racial identity crisis. They look so different that people do not usually realize they are sisters. Her sister takes after their father and has African-American features, while Birdie inherited her mother’s light skin, European features and straight hair. Most of the story’s conflicts stem from Birdie’s white appearance. Birdie narrates the novel in first-person past tense. The novel begins in 1975 and spans Birdie’s life from age eight to 14, ending in 1982. All of her work deals with the experience of being mixed-race in America.Ĭaucasia’s protagonist is Birdie Lee, an adolescent mixed-race girl from Boston who lives with her black father Deck, her white mother Sandy, and her sister Cole, who is three years older than Birdie. Danzy Senna is the author of three novels, a memoir, and a collection of short stories. Caucasia won numerous awards, including the Stephen Crane Award for Best New Fiction, the American Library Association’s Alex Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and The Los Angeles Times named it one of the Best Books of the Year. ![]()
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