Zombie nation? The horde, social uprisings, and national narratives

This article explores the function of the zombie horde as a literary entity used to represent and interrogate Haitian national narratives. Three works serve as case studies: Gérard Etienne's Le nègre crucifié (1974) to examine the "predatory horde"; Frankétienne's Les affres d'un défi (1979) to analyze the "proletarian horde"; and Dany Laferrière's Pays sans chapeau (1996) to explore the "phantasmal horde." Ultimately, the figure of the zombie marks these literary uprisings as mythic discourses, revealing both their pertinence to historical "reality" and their representational limits.