‘Her skin absorbs every wavelength of light’: Refracting colour, language and mixed-race identities in Astrid Roemer’s Off-White

Abstract

This paper explores how Astrid Roemer’s disruptive use of imagery, wordplay and colour in the novel Off-White reflects foundational ideas of Critical Mixed-Race Studies, including the “mutability of race and the porosity of racial boundaries and categories” as well as the “interlocking nature of racial phenomena with gender, sex, sexuality, class, and other categories of difference’”(Daniel, Kina, Dariotis & Fojas, 2014).