Mayukh Sen’s scrupulous and moving biography, Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star, considers the Golden Age actress’ ambivalence toward her white and Sinhalese ancestry through a decolonial lens. In 1936, Merle Oberon, then 24, became the first performer of color and Asian descent to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. But Oberon never got to revel in her achievement’s historic importance. To succeed within a far more racist and xenophobic environment, Oberon took pains to pass for white. “This was less a choice than a necessity,” Sen writes, “and it came at great psychic cost to her.”
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