The daughter of an Afro-Caribbean father and a Danish mother, Larsen was brought up in a primarily white environment and spent a number of years in Denmark before entering Fisk University in 1907. She left school after a year and returned to Denmark for a further four years. She then returned to America and enrolled in the Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing in New York City, graduating in 1915. She spent some years working for Lincoln and the Tuskegee Institute's Andrew Memorial Hospital as head nurse, before joining New York City's Board of Health. In 1919, she married Dr. Elmer S. Imes, a research physicist. She subsequently left nursing and began studying at the New York Public Library's Library School run by Columbia University. She passed her exam in 1923 and worked for various library branches until 1925. She was introduced to various writers that formed the Harlem Renaissance and began working on her first novel. During the 1920s she published a few short stories. In 1928, she published Quicksand, which won critical acclaim and was largely an autobiographical work. Larsen only produced two novels, the second of which, Passing, is highly regarded. In 1929 Larsen was awarded Harmon Foundation's bronze medal for achievement in literature and, the following year, received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her divorce in 1933 led to her return to nursing and the end of her literary career. A revival of her work began in the late 1970s. |
