Introduction

After situating the zombie’s representation within US and Global North narratives denigrating Haiti’s capacity for self-governance, the introduction argues that Haitian and French Antillean writers have long used the zombie as an anti-colonial discursive tool. Next, the introduction offers an overview of the ways anthropological, literary and other narratives have presented the zombie over the centuries and in a transnational context as a way of establishing two concepts: 1. the global zombie imaginary—a body of narratives representing the legendary figure that crosses genre, media, and national boundaries—to which this book adds an understanding of the contribution of French Caribbean writers; and 2. the avatars of the zombie, those forms most often associated with the living dead figure in literature, anthropology and film.