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

Giselle Liza Anatol The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the CircumCaribbean and African Diaspora. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015. xv + 295 pp. (Paper US$32.95).

This study by Giselle Anatol is remarkable in a number of ways, from the sophistication of its social, cultural, and theoretical analyses to the ways in which it links both historical and metaphorical representations of the vampire trope-through the Caribbean soucouyant figure-to forms of exploitation of colonized peoples. In readings that range from folktales to contemporary narratives, Anatol seeks to unveil "the constraints to female empowerment and mobility that are inherent in most 'vampire' tales," while highlighting "how some contemporary writers... shift power dynamics" in order to valorize "more explicit depictions of women's bodily sovereignty" (p. 2). This creative combination, which appropriates folkloric and mythic representation to expand the boundaries of women's subjectivity and agency, makes her analytical readings even more valuable. Focusing on cultural flows rather than the (re)creation of a center, Anatol probes themes ranging from European vampire stories, through women's sexuality and same-sex desire, to vampiric inflections in the contradictory ideas of citizenship faced by the black Caribbean diaspora in various metropolitan centers. Critical factors of class and race are brought into play as...