Kirsten Imani Kasai Official: Instagram

Kirsten Imani Kasai

Writer, editor & educator. Making the macabre beautiful every day.

🎼 Anxiety🎶 a memoir (Storyknife Live)
Kirsten Imani Kasai: Free to Good Home
The House of Erzulie
 
The House of ErzulieKirsten Imani KasaiPaperbackFiction. African & African American Studies. THE HOUSE OF ERZULIE tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, the daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents' values by embracing spiritualism, women's rights, and the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is an educated man who is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans voodou practitioner. Emilie's and Isidore’s letters and journals are interspersed with sections narrated by Lydia Mueller, an architectural historian whose fragile mental health further deteriorates as she reads. Imbued with a sense of the uncanny and the surreal, THE HOUSE OF ERZULIE also alludes to the very real horrors of slavery, and makes a significant contribution to the literature of the U.S. South, particularly the tradition of the African-American Gothic novel. "Blurs the edges between dream and reality, madness and magic."—Gayle Brandeis "Intriguing and compelling at every turn."—Maisha Wester
The House of ErzulieKirsten Imani KasaiAudiobookThe House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents by embracing spiritualism and advocating the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans vodou practitioner. Emilie's and Isidore's letters and journals are interspersed with sections narrated by Lydia Mueller, an architectural historian whose fragile mental health further deteriorates as she reads. Imbued with a sense of the uncanny and the surreal, The House of Erzulie also alludes to the very real horrors of slavery as it draws on the long tradition of the African-American Gothic novel.
Not-So-Wicked Witches and Adventures in Library Research
NY Times Opinion: “Are you dreading a return to normal?”
Me, Myself & I (audio poem)
The House of Erzulie (audiobook)
Tattoo (#2 in series)
Ice Song (#1 in series)