Giselle Liza Anatol is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS) who specializes in Caribbean, U.S. African American, and multicultural American literature. Her Knowledge Share pulls, in part, from growing up in a large Trinidadian family; as a child, she eagerly listened to the folklore shared by her aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents, and found herself drawn to a deeper understanding of these tales, sayings, and remedies as she pursued her studies. Anatol’s session will focus on the folk figure known as a “soucouyant” in Trinidad, and, in other parts of the African diaspora, as Old Hige or Old Hag, boo hag, azeman, volant, loogaroo, obayifo, and a host of other names. This creature appears in the community as an old woman during the day, but at night she sheds her skin, transforms into a ball of fire, and flies from house to house to suck the blood or life-force of her neighbors. It is said that rice, salt, or sorghum sprinkled on front stoops, doorways, windowsills, and village crossroads can protect sleepers from a soucouyant’s attack. What is it about these foodstuffs that our ancestors believed held such power? What is the significance of the creature’s peeling off her skin before being able to fly? Why does the figure generate such fear? And why have many contemporary writers rejected the idea of the soucouyant as evil, and reconfigured the folk character as a symbol of empowerment? Anatol will explore these questions and others as she shares conventional folk stories about the soucouyant, adaptations in more recent literature, and her extensive research on the subject.