Caucasia
Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the civil rights movement in Boston in the 1970s. The sisters are so close that they have created a private language, yet to the outside world they can't be sisters: while Cole looks like her father's daughter, Birdie appears to be white. For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her own blackness. Then their parents marriage falls apart. Their father moves in with his black girlfriend, who won't even look at Birdie, and their mother seems to be more and more out of control, giving her life over to the movement. At night the sisters watch mysterious men arrive at their house with bundles shaped like rifles. One night, through the attic windows Birdie watches her father and his girlfriend drive away with Cole - they have gone to Brazil, she will later learn, where her father hopes for a racial equality he will never have in the States. And the next morning, in the belief that the Feds are after them, Birdie and her mother have left everything behind: their house and possessions, their friends, and - most disturbing of all - their identity. Passing as the daughter and w
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Caucasia
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1970s Boston, two biracial sisters live with their white mother and Black father until activism splits the family. Lighter-skinned Birdie and her mother go on the run, passing white in small New England towns.
Caucasia was written by Danzy Senna and published in 1998. It was Senna's debut novel and won the Stephen Crane First Fiction Award and the American Library Association Alex Award.
Caucasia is 413 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Caucasia takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Caucasia is a standalone novel by Danzy Senna, not part of a series.
Caucasia is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.