--- description: Find out how Brit Bennett is shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. title: 2021 TIME100 Next: Brit Bennett image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a72a991262ac157/698a1711656a3fe046bdaff2/time100-next-Brit-Bennett.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Feb 16, 2021 # Brit Bennett by Tayari Jones  Rozette Rago for TIME Jazz, as everyone knows, is built on the standards—the songs that every musician knows by heart. A similar dynamic undergirds the American literary tradition. Evergreen story lines make up the fabric of our collective narrative, endlessly fascinating, yielding fresh insights when passed through the imagination of a writer who finds new music between the notes of the classics. Such a storyteller is Brit Bennett. Racial passing, the phenomenon at the core of [her astonishing novel ](https://time.com/collection/must-read-books-2020/5904261/the-vanishing-half/ "undefined")[_The Vanishing Half_](https://time.com/collection/must-read-books-2020/5904261/the-vanishing-half/ "undefined")_,_ is as familiar to American literature as “Lush Life” is to the American songbook. Yet Bennett is informed and inspired by the intensities and complexities of our present moment. If race is a construct, what about gender? What are the limits of self-definition? How can one delineate its wages and costs? In jazz, many artists sing the standards, but [in literature only the most gifted](https://time.com/5932843/time100-talks-brit-bennett-jasmine-guillory-jacqueline-woodson-fiction/ "undefined") can revoice the classics, rendering them recognizable yet, well, novel. Brit Bennett, take a bow. _Jones is the author of the novels_ An American Marriage, Silver Sparrow _and_ The Untelling  Photograph by Rozette Rago for TIME **_Buy a print of the_** [**_Brit Bennett TIME100 Next cover_**](https://timecoverstore.com/featured/time-100-next-britt-bennett-photograph-by-rozette-rago-for-time.html "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937735/brit-bennett/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937735/brit-bennett/"},"headline":"Brit Bennett","datePublished":"2021-02-16T21:28:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:47:13.634Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937735/brit-bennett/","keywords":["list","franchise","TIME 100 Next"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a72a991262ac157/698a1711656a3fe046bdaff2/time100-next-Brit-Bennett.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1a72a991262ac157/698a1711656a3fe046bdaff2/time100-next-Brit-Bennett.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2021/5937735/brit-bennett/","name":"Brit Bennett"}}]}] ```