Introduction: Transnational and Postcolonial Vampires

Abstract

When Jonathan Harker, deep in the Transylvanian mountains, embarks on the final stage of his journey towards Count Dracula’s residence, he overhears the frightened natives whispering ‘Denn die Todten reiten Schnell’ — ‘for the dead travel fast’. Dracula, in the disguise of Harker’s driver, flashes a gleaming smile in the speaker’s direction causing great consternation and much crossing. The vampire then drives Harker into an unholy night full of howling wolves and strange omens, taking the hapless Englishman the final few miles to the castle that, in many ways, marks the border between East and West or between the imagined self of Europe and the Oriental Other.