race—preserving it, developing myths of origin, and maintaining its purity. In the Convent race is indeterminate—all racial codes are eliminated, deliberately withheld. For some readers this was disturbing and some admitted to being preoccupied with finding out which character was the “white girl”; others wondered initially and then abandoned the question; some ignored the confusion by reading them all as black. The perceptive ones read them as fully realized individuals—whatever their race. Unconstrained by the weary and wearying vocabulary of racial domination, the narrative seeks to
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