The Inventor of the Zombie: The life and times of William B Seabrook: pervert, drunk, cannibal, occultist and ‘negrophile’

This talk will explore the life of William Seabrook (1884-1945), once a celebrated feature writer, journalist, travel writer and friend to many key artists of the New York and Paris Modernist era. Seabrook’s exotic travels led him to join the Bedouins, attempt to eat human flesh in West Africa, experiment with witchery with Aleister Crowley, pay Man Ray to photograph Lee Miller in bondage, and in his most lasting legacy travel to Haiti and publish Magic Island, the book he claimed introduced the zombie to American popular culture.

As Seabrook’s books begin to be reissued on the 70th anniversary of his death, it is a good time to reassess this deeply Fortean figure.

Roger Luckhurst is Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck and author of Zombies: A Cultural History.