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The indisputably black vampires of Jewelle Gomez, L.A. Banks, and Octavia Butler
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In part one's examination of black vampires in literature, four book authors were said to top the list for putting the black vampire on center stage. Anne Rice was placed first on the list, but was Rice really the first author to write and have published a novel featuring a black vampire? A more provocative question, "Is her vampire queen, Akasha, actually black?"
Akasha on paper is scary enough but unlike the movie version of the blood-thirsty royal, the ancient queen of Rice's 1988 novel Queen of the Damned is not the first black vampire in a non-illustrated novel. She is not African as defined by the mainstream. But readers who look for a vampire more identifiably of African descent need not look far. Three African-American female writers have added to the world library vampires who rise to indisputable blackness.
Jewelle Gomez: The Gilda Stories
Jewelle Gomez is credited as writing the first piece of literature with an undeniably black vampire as the main character.
Gomez is an activist and writer whose work has appeared in innumerable journals and anthologies. They include Children of the Night, Home Girls, Daughters of Africa, and Afrekete. She is the author of five books, including the award-winning The Gilda Stories, the first black vampire novel published in the United States; more Gilda stories can be found in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora and two recent anthologies from Firebrand Books, To Be Continued One and Two. (Dark Matter)
Published in 1991 by Firebrand Books, The Gilda Stories tell of a black, female slave with no name who runs away from Louisiana. A woman named Gilda turns her into a vampire, and the escaped slave takes on her name. The Midwest Review said, "Gilda is the quintessential outsider seeking community." Indeed, Gilda is not only a black vampire, she is also a feminist and lesbian.
L. A. Banks: Vampire Huntress series
Next, there is no debate that the creatures of the night in L. A. Banks Vampire Huntress series are black. The first book in the series, Minion, appeared in 2003. In Banks's world, vampires are not the heroes or heroines who've popped up lately in vampire literature. They are what they've always been in folklore, evil and hunted, and her heroine, Damali Richards, is compared to another famous fictional character Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Wikipedia says that the author writes in a variety of genres under the names LA Banks, Leslie Esdaile, Leslie Banks and Leslie Esdaile Banks. However, as suggested in the part one, probably due the phenomenal success of Stephanie Meyers's Twilight series, which has been adapted to the big screen, and perhaps the nearly equal hotness of Charlaine Harris's more full-blooded Sookie Stackhouse novels that have been adapted as HBO's True Blood, all things vampire are getting more attention lately. This vampire love may be trickling down to Banks's Vampire Huntress Legends, but her series had a dedicated fan base before Meyers's success with Twilight.
Despite black vampires having only a minor presence in the Twilight series, Banks told Karen Hunter at Black Voices that Twilight's popularity can only mean good things for her franchise.
"Any time there is a rise in our genre that means that even more doors will open for me," said the Philly-bred writer of more than 15 best-selling books, including a 12-book series that kicked off in 2003 with 'Minion.' Her latest book, 'The Thirteenth,' ... hit the New York Times best-seller list. (BV)
Banks's tales take place in a more obviously multicultural land. It's clear that the Philadelphia writer has taken care to populate her vampire universe with a hitherto under-appreciated creature, the suave, sexy, and dangerous vampyre noir, a formidable villain.
The Thirteenth was released in March and is the final installment in the Vampire Huntress series. According to Wikipedia, two of Banks's vampire books have been optioned for film.
Octavia Butler: Fledgling
Less than one year before she died, speculative fiction writer Octavia Butler tackled the vampire legend with her book Fledgling, the story of the first black vampire, Shori Matthews, a 53-year-old vampire who looks like a little girl. Like other Butler stories, Fledgling examines race and culture through fiction. Shori is a vampire genetically engineered to be black in hopes that she will be what Blade fans would call "a day walker." The vampires have gambled their research resources on the melanin in African skin.
The story's energy comes from the plight of a woman on the run, but its real fascination is generated by the sociology of human-vampire relations that Butler develops. We learn that the beings commonly called vampires are actually Ina, a matriarchal race whose culture predates humanity by several thousand years. Most of the legends involving crucifixes, crypts and bats are just silly superstitions about a shy, peaceful people who live among us in small, single-sex communes. Yes, Ina are nocturnal, but that's only because their pale skin lacks melanin to protect them from the sun. Otherwise, they're just like you and me. (2005 Washington Post book review)
With Fledgling, Butler confirmed again that she deserved the many awards she won in her lifetime for her writing.
Extra, Extra: Banks talks to the Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey
Links:
- Twilight or dawn of the black vampire
- Racism in vampire literature?
- Octavia Butler's profile at Examiner.com
- Follow L.A. Banks on Twitter
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