Cultural Diversity and the Alternate History in Kim Newman’s Novel ‎Anno Dracula

Abstract

The paper offers a new insight into the global perception of vampirism as cultural diversity tradition lens in the British writer Kim Newman’s novel Anno Dracula, published in 1992. The historical allusions throughout the novel presents the discourse of intercultural concepts that does not only speak to the Western Dracula tradition and the 19th Century English historical setting but also to our own 21st Century with its multicultural emerging societal relations. In a politically charged destruction of a fictional setting, the writer shows a kind of prevailing evil that defies the existence of mankind. The paper presents different points of view to interpret the role of both historical and fictional characters drawn by the novelist to create an image of horror. The paper also traces the cultural encounters with the Dracula tradition and how far this has contributed to build a political rebellion in a police state that might exist anywhere in the world.