Zora and the Zombie
First of all, whoever wrote this story is totally crazy... Just kidding! I had no idea Zora and the Zombie was about Zora Neal Hurston and her interest in Haitian zombies, so I was completely surprised that the story was grounded in biographical reality. The title isn't just alliterative to be cute!
I would like us to discuss the issue of real historical figures in fantasy literature. Is Zora's character more accessible because the reader knows she is a real person, and so can visualize her experience in the story as one in real life? What fantasy elements prevent us from really believing these things happened to Zora? Do they undermine our belief in Zora's existence and the facts of the story?
I would like us to discuss the issue of real historical figures in fantasy literature. Is Zora's character more accessible because the reader knows she is a real person, and so can visualize her experience in the story as one in real life? What fantasy elements prevent us from really believing these things happened to Zora? Do they undermine our belief in Zora's existence and the facts of the story?
posted by Anonymous at 3:43 PM
2 Comments:
Is the seductive woman the person who is turning everyone into zombies? If so, then the 'crazy' old man is right, and maybe he isn't so crazy after all.
I use actual historical figures in many of my stories, and have from the beginning: My first published story, "Liza and the Crazy Water Man" (1996), features musicians Bill and Charlie Monroe and other old-time Charlotte, N.C., radio personalities as supporting characters. I am always interested in the "gaps" in history and biography, the parts we just have to imagine because the actual record has been lost, if there ever was a record in the first place. And what really was up with Zora and the "Zombie" Felicia Felix-Mentor is a big unanswered question for me. My writing teacher John Kessel (author of "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence") once said, "You write about what bothers you." These gaps in our past are among the things that bother me, I guess.
One other story we've read this semester is about an actual historical figure (Nina Simone in Shelley Jackson's "Here Is the Church") while two others are, by their own authors' admission, largely autobiographical (Jeff Ford's "A Night in the Tropics" and Liz Hand's "Wonderwall"). Both Ford and China Mieville (in "Reports of Certain Events in London") make write themselves into the story as characters. Does all this make the stories more or less convincing, or are these historical or biographical overlays irrelevant to the job of fiction?
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