Sharmila Sen

Harvard Book Store welcomes SHARMILA SEN—executive editor-at-large at Harvard University Press—for a discussion of her debut book, Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America.

About Not Quite Not White

At the age of 12, Sharmila Sen emigrated from India to the U.S. The year was 1982, and everywhere she turned, she was asked to self-report her race—on INS forms, at the doctor's office, in middle school. Never identifying with a race in the India of her childhood, she rejects her new "not quite" designation—not quite white, not quite black, not quite Asian—and spends much of her life attempting to blend into American whiteness. But after her teen years trying to assimilate—watching shows like General Hospital and The Jeffersons, dancing to Duran Duran and Prince, and perfecting the art of Jell-O no-bake desserts—she is forced to reckon with the hard questions: What does it mean to be white, why does whiteness retain the magic cloak of invisibility while other colors are made hypervisible, and how much does whiteness figure into Americanness?

Part memoir, part manifesto, Not Quite Not White is a searing appraisal of race and a path forward for the next not quite not white generation—a witty and sharply honest story of discovering that not-whiteness can be the very thing that makes us American.

Praise

“In this intimate, passionate look at race in America, Sen considers the price paid by nonwhite immigrants who try to become white, while always wearing a smiling face. Her provocative solution is for people like us to defiantly embrace not being white. That feels just right to me.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees

"A stylish, sharp, witty, and honest analysis, from an engagingly personal perspective, of that inexorable American problem—race. By the time I reached the end—very quickly, I must add, for it was snappy in its pacing—I was moved enough to want to stand up and applaud for a long time." —Neel Mukherjee, author of A State of Freedom

“[A] captivating memoir . . . [a] heartfelt account of how newcomers carve a space for themselves in the melting pot of America.” —Publishers Weekly

“Timely and eloquent, Sen's book is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature that engages with the topic of race from outside the white/black binary. Insightful, relevant reading for these times.” —Kirkus Reviews