Brit Bennett was born in California. She completed her undergraduate degree in English at Stanford University and later her MFA at the University of Michigan. She also studied at Oxford.
Bennett has published several acclaimed non-fiction essays on the Black experience, which have appeared in the Paris Review and the New Yorker, amongst others. Her debut novel, The Mothers, was published 2016 and received widespread acclaim for its profound and astute handling of themes of race and religious hypocrisy.
Her second novel, The Vanishing Half (2020) was equally enthusiastically received both by the critics and the reading public.
Spanning the 1950s to the 1990s and from the Deep South to California, Bennett’s stunning novel follows the journeys of two estranged twin sisters leading very different lives – to the extent of adopting different racial identities. Compelling and utterly original, The Vanishing Half exposes the destructive consequences of racism in lucid, piercing prose.
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
