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. Cole looks like her father's daughter but Birdie appears to be white.

The sisters find their close-knit relationship in jeopardy when their parents' marriage falls apart. Their father moves to Brazil where he hopes to find a racial equality he will never have in the States, and takes Cole with him. Birdie and her mother also leave everything behind to create a new life and identity - passing as the daughter and wife of a deceased Jewish professor.

Desperate to find her sister, yet afraid of betraying her mother and herself to some unknown danger, Birdie must learn to navigate the white world and the pains of adolescence until she is finally prepared to set off in search of Cole.

An extraordinary debut novel with hints of autobiography, 'Caucasia' offers an unusual examination of racial and family identity.