Nella Larsen's Quicksand, first published in 1928, was the first novel to give voice to the sexual desires of a black woman. Helga Crane, the book's main protagonist, is frapped in the conflict between sexual fulfilment and middle-class respectability and a conflict of race and sex which even a religous conversion cannot resolve. Passing (1929) tackles the sensitive issue of black people who 'pass' for white. It also explores the desire of one woman for another - a new and daring theme for the writing of the time.