“The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same.” Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction. In 2014, she received the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, and her debut novel The Mothers was a New York Times bestseller. Her second novel The Vanishing Half was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Her essays have been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel. The Mother’s was a best selling debut and her sophomore release was named one of the best books of 2020. The Cheeky Natives sat down to discuss The Vanishing Half with her. A book exploring the lives of two identical sisters, Desiree and Stella Vignes. This book is a multi generational exploration of the wide ranging impacts of the choices people make in difficult circumstances. In a beautifully written page turner, Bennett asks the reader to imagine what difficulties lie at the intersection of grief, family and race. Bennett is a tour de force.