In 1975 Genna Hewett-Meade’s college roommate died a mysterious, violent death partway through their freshman year. Minette Swift had been assertive, fiercely individualistic, and one of the few black girls at their exclusive, «enlightened» college- and Genna, daughter of a prominent civil defense lawyer, felt duty-bound to protect her at all costs. But fifteen years later, while reconstructing Minette’s tragic death, Genna is forced to painfully confront her own past life and identity… and her deepest beliefs about social obligation in a morally gray world.
Black Girl/White Girl is a searing double portrait of race and civil rights in post-Vietnam America, captured by one of the most important literary voices of our time.

JOYCE CAROL OATES is a recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/ Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the 2005 Prix Femina for The Falls. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In 2006 she received the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize.