Mama Lola

Mama Lola shatters the stereotypes by offering an intimate portrait of Vodou in everyday life. The author tells tales spanning five generations of Vodou healers in Mama Lola's family, beginning with an African ancestor and ending with Claudine Michel's account of working with Mama Lola after the Haitian earthquake. "Brown weaves together fictional, biographical, and ethnological narratives into a moving account of the life of a Vodou community and its leader, Mama Lola. This book belies the stereotypes that still distort the image of this ancient religion in the academic as well as the popular mind."—Albert J. Raboteau, Princeton University "An eloquent contribution to the emerging feminist paradigm of scholarship as engaged, embodied, and life-affirming."—Carol P. Christ, author of Laughter of Aphrodite "A riveting narrative, rich in detail. Karen Brown brings a rare, well-informed regard to her interpretation of Haitian religious life."—Lawrence E. Sullivan, author of Icanchu's Drum: An Orientation to the Meaning of South American Religions