Author Justina Ireland shares the inspiration behind the book Dread Nation

The original idea for Dread Nation and Deathless Divide came about in response to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 

"I was reading that book and thinking: How could women who didn’t even dress themselves suddenly become zombie fighting machines?"  

If anything, I thought, they would’ve had ladies’ maids to do the zombie-killing for them.  And as I considered what that would look like in the United States, the first draft of Dread Nation was born.  It featured Negro girls who went to special combat schools to better themselves, similar to the Indian boarding schools of the late nineteenth century.  

"Soon, I had a book about zombies and pretty girls fighting the dead in fancy dresses with lovely blades.  Cute boys showed up to complicate things and voila! It seemed like a great young adult novel. One part intrigue, one part survival, a dash of romance, shake until blended and serve chilled."

Dread Nation and Deathless Divide are available now wherever books are sold.

Continue reading the post Zombies and the Tragedy of Black Lives are the Inspiration Behind ‘Dread Nation’ on Black Girl Nerds.

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