The Magic Island

About this book

William Seabrook travelled to Haiti and returned with accounts of Vodou ceremonies, spirit possession and beliefs about the dead. The stories gripped American readers, especially the passages that popularised a sensational image of the zombie.

The Magic Island is travel writing from 1929, saturated with Seabrook's outsider perspective and the racial assumptions of his era. His scenes sometimes preserve observations worth studying, while other passages reshape Haitian culture for an audience hungry for exotic danger. Reading the book today calls for care, particularly where living religious traditions are translated into entertainment. Its influence on Western horror culture was immense.