Transnational and Postcolonial Vampires: Dark Blood

by Tabish Khair (Editor), Johan Höglund (Editor)

Throughout the ages, vampires have transgressed the borders of gender, race, class, propriety and nations. This collection examines the vampire as a postcolonial and transnational phenomenon that maps the fear of the Other, the ravenous hunger of Empires and the transcultural rifts and intercultural common grounds that make up global society today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

241 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Tabish Khair was born and educated in Bihar, India. He worked in Delhi as a Staff Reporter until his late twenties and is now a professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. Winner of the All India Poetry Prize, his novels have been shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize (Hong Kong), the Hindu Best Fiction Prize and the Crossword Vodafone Literature Awards (India), the Encore Award (UK) and for translation prizes in Denmark and France.

Reviews

[Dean Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not a bad book, but the definition of "Vampires" and being about "Vampires" in Cinema is very loose. Many of the authors went out of their way to cite works that were specifically not vampire related. While there is nothing wrong with this, it was a bit of a disappointment to me. I loved a lot of the references, and as a fan of the film, there were some great parts. However, it was not really what I was expecting, and as work, it's a bit deceptive.
I don't know if I would buy this work. I collect everything I can on the topic of Vampires in culture, but this work left me a bit cold and bored.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

A postcolonial exploration of the fictional vampire, with a broad range of texts covered (including those largely disconnected from the gothic genre, including a poem about Oliver Cromwell). An intriguing introduction leads into the expected discussions on CARMILLA and DRACULA, before we move into more modern fare: African vampire cults, David Cronenberg's RABID, Justin Cronin's THE PASSAGE, South Asian bloodsuckers and UNDERWORLD. I didn't find this as insightful as some other critical theory books on the subject I've read recently, but it neverless opens up many avenues of interest and deserves kudos for saying something different.