From the dagger mistress Ezili Je Wouj and the gender-bending mermaid Lasiren to the beautiful femme queen Ezili Freda, the Ezili pantheon of Vodoun spirits represents the divine forces of love, sexuality, prosperity, pleasure, maternity, creativity, and fertility. And just as Ezili appears in different guises and characters, so too does Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley in her voice- and genre-shifting, exploratory book Ezili's Mirrors. Drawing on her background as a literary critic as well as her quest to learn the lessons of her spiritual ancestors, Tinsley theorizes black Atlantic sexuality by tracing how contemporary queer Caribbean and African American writers and performers evoke Ezili. Tinsley shows how Ezili is manifest in the work and personal lives of singers Whitney Houston and Azealia Banks, novelists Nalo Hopkinson and Ana Lara, performers MilDred Gerestant and Sharon Bridgforth, and filmmakers Anne Lescot and Laurence Magloire-none of whom identify as Vodou practitioners. In so doing, Tinsley offers a model of queer black feminist theory that creates new possibilities for decolonizing queer studies.

Acknowledgments  ix
Bridge. Read This Book Like a Song  1
Introduction. For the Love of Laveau  3
Bridge. A Black Cisfemme Is a Beautiful Thing  29
1. To Transcender Transgender  31
Bridge. Sissy Werk  65
2. Mache Ansanm  67
Bridge. My Femdom, My Love  99
3. Riding the Red  101
Bridge. For the Party Girls  133
4. Its a Party  135
Bridge. Baía and Marigo  169
Conclusion. Arties's Song  171
Notes  195
Glossary  223
Bibliography  225
Index  241