a brave foray into vast and difficult terrain.The novel raises thorny questions about the cost of blackness. there is such depth, possibility and dramatic propulsion. 'Bennett balances the literary demands of dynamic characterization with the historical and social realities of her subject matter. Bennett balances the literary demands of dynamic characterization with the historical and social realities of her subject matter.' - New York Times 'Bennett's gorgeously written second novel, an ambitious meditation on race and identity, considers the divergent fates of twin sisters, born in the Jim Crow South, after one decides to pass for white. Publisher: Dialogue ISBN: 9780349701479 Number of pages: 384 Weight: 300 g Dimensions: 198 x 126 x 28 mm MEDIA REVIEWS Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' story lines intersect? Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape.

But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year 2021 Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2020 Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021

Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2021 Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month for May 2021

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett