This Party's Dead: Grief, Joy and Spilled Rum at the World's Death Festivals

(Paperback)

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'[A] rollicking, globe-trotting death adventure' The Brooklyn Rail

What if we responded to death...by throwing a party Journalist Erica Buist travels to seven death festivals around the world (Nepal, Madagascar, Indonesia, Sicily, Japan, Mexico and New Orleans)

By the time Erica Buists father-in-law Chris was discovered, upstairs in his bed, his book resting on his chest, he had been dead for over a week. She searched for answers (the artery-clogging cheeses in his fridge) and tried to reason with herself (does daughter-in-law even feature in the grief hierarchy) and eventually landed on an inevitable, uncomfortable truth: everybody dies.

With Mexicos Day of the Dead festivities as a starting point, Erica decided to confront death head-on by visiting seven death festivals around the world one for every day they didnt find Chris. From Mexico to Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan and finally Indonesia with a stopover in New Orleans, where the dead outnumber the living ten to one This Partys Dead is the account of her journey to understand how other cultures deal with mortal terror, how they move past the knowledge that theyre going to die in order to live happily day-to-day, how they celebrate rather than shy away from the topic of death and how when this openness and acceptance are passed down through the generations, death suddenly doesnt seem so scary after all. Now available in paperback.

Reviews

• 'Poignant and often hilarious' Publishers Weekly
  

Author Bio

Erica is a writer, journalist and author living in London. She writes mostly for the Guardian but can also be found on the BBC, Medium, Newsweek and in various literary magazines and anthologies. She has been awarded writing residencies at The Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, Vermont Studio Center, Faber, Arte Studio Ginestrelle and VCCA. Erica is currently working on a collection of short stories based in London.

@ericabuist