ABSTRACT
Within the context of the colonisation of the Caribbean, the zombie—a figure at the crossroads of life and death—has been translated into different forms and assigned different meanings. This paper focuses on the multiple functions of historical zombie texts from the seventeenth century onwards as encountered in encyclopaedias, anthropological writing and fiction. It traces the ways in which the zombie was used in scholarly discourse published in France and Louisiana in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how these texts created a variety of significations of the undead. The paper discusses some implications of Wade Davis’ poison hypothesis and examines the use of the zombie as a figure of twentieth century scholarly discourse. The paper finally argues that elements of historical zombie texts continue to live on in filmic representations, and concludes with some considerations on the zombie as a figure of translation.
