Karen McCarthy Brown's classic book shatters stereotypes of Vodou by offering an intimate portrait of African-based religion in everyday life. She explores the importance of women's religious practices along with related themes of family and of social change. Weaving several of her own voices--analytic, descriptive, and personal--with the voices of her subjects in alternate chapters of traditional ethnography and ethnographic fiction, Brown presents herself as a character in Mama Lola's world and allows the reader to evaluate her interactions there. Startlingly original, Brown's work endures as an important experiment in ethnography as a social art form rooted in human relationships. A new preface, epilogue, bibliography, and a collection of family photographs tell the story of the effect of the book's publication on Mama Lola's life.

"Mama Lola is about extraordinary people living ordinary lives. It is also about courage--that of the manbo and the scholar, both taking chances, both succeeding in the end. Karen McCarthy Brown offers a contemporary classic for those who seek Haiti. I am grateful."--Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Ph.D., Haitian houngan asogwe

It's rare to get this kind of extended look at the life of a vodou practitioner. This book offers an inside view of a subject often seen as bizarre and foreign. ?geoff