Black Female Vampires in African American Women’s Novels, 1977–2011

She Bites Back relocates the image of the black female vampire from the margins of our imaginations to the center of our consciousness. Kendra R. Parker reveals how and why the black woman has been employed to represent some of Western society’s greatest fears and most passionate desires. Exhilarating scholarship! -- Gregory Jerome Hampton, Howard University
Parker’s masterful work provides a profound, visionary analysis of the negative images and stereotypes black women have historically confronted and overcome in American society. Her insights illuminate the awesome creativity that’s helped reclaim and protect black female dignity and identity from poisonous cultural colonization. -- Fred L. Johnson III III, Hope College
Parker’s energetic, well-researched book chronicles the creative and subversive ways black women have written about vampires. Rooted in history, but firmly aimed at the present and future, Parker’s research and analysis reveal the deeper meaning behind black women’s depictions of vampires in myriad forms—and how sometimes the unhuman can be the most human rendering of all. -- Tananarive Due, University of California, Los Angeles
Parker wrests the vampire from the throes of the Gothic to reveal its complex relationship with black women’s bodies. She journeys from the history of the vampire as a conduit for the fears of a eurocentric society to the moment when black women writers assume ownership of the vampire as their own tool of expression. -- Tarshia L. Stanley, St. Catherine University