The Supernatural in Short Fiction of the Americas

The continuing cultural encounters of the Americas, between European and indigenous cultures, and between scientific materialism and premodern supernaturalism, have originated new narrative forms. While supernatural short fiction of the Americas belongs to the broad category of the fantastic, which is generally approached synchronically, reading audiences of the past 200 years have shifted their beliefs about the supernatural several times. This book examines supernatural short fiction of the Americas in terms of its shifting cultural and epistemological contexts. Included are discussions of such forms as the sacred story, the neofantastic story, the folktale, and the local-color ghost story.