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. The extraordinary national best seller that launched Danzy Senna's literary career, Caucasia is a modern classic, at once a powerful coming of age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America.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. Haunted by the loss of her sister, she sets out a desperate search for the family that left her behind. But for Birdie, home will always be Cole. Soon Birdie and her mother are on the road as well, drifting across the country in search of a new home. One night Birdie watches her father and his new girlfriend drive away with Cole. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie's confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself. The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school. Danzy Senna's Caucasia is now available for the first time in audio!īirdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston.
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