The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean (Critical Caribbean Studies): Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora

The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean (Critical Caribbean Studies): Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora

by Giselle Liza Anatol (Author)

Synopsis

The Things That Fly in the Night explores images of vampirism in Caribbean and African diasporic folk traditions and in contemporary fiction. Giselle Liza Anatol focuses on the figure of the soucouyant, or Old Hag-an aged woman by day who sheds her skin during night's darkest hours in order to fly about her community and suck the blood of her unwitting victims. In contrast to the glitz, glamour, and seductiveness of conventional depictions of the European vampire, the soucouyant triggers unease about old age and female power. Tracing relevant folklore through the English- and French-speaking Caribbean, the U.S. Deep South, and parts of West Africa, Anatol shows how tales of the nocturnal female bloodsuckers not only entertain and encourage obedience in pre-adolescent listeners, but also work to instill particular values about women's proper place and behaviors in society at large.

Alongside traditional legends, Anatol considers the explosion of soucouyant and other vampire narratives among writers of Caribbean and African heritage who in the past twenty years have rejected the demonic image of the character and used her instead to urge for female mobility, racial and cultural empowerment, and anti colonial resistance. Texts include work by authors as diverse as Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, U.S. National Book Award winner Edwidge Danticat, and science fiction/fantasy writers Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson.

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 296
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 28 Feb 2015

ISBN 10: 0813565731
ISBN 13: 9780813565736

Media Reviews
The Things That Fly in the Night is an important book in the growing scholarship of Caribbean folklore and literature. Encyclopedic in its scope and grand in its theoretical ambition, Professor Anatol's study of the specters of Caribbean occult should be read by everyone interested in Afro-diasporic culture.
--Natasha Barnes author of Cultural Conundrums: Gender, Race, Nation, and the Making of Caribbean Cultural Politics
Author Bio
Giselle Liza Anatol is an associate professor of English at the University of Kansas at Lawrence.