This is the cover of my new book, to be published by Simon & Schuster in January, 2013. The featured artwork is a contemporary voodoo flag made by Renold Clerisier of sequins, pearl strands and other materials. It depicts the god Granbwa, master of the trees, forests, and wild places. The photograph used in the flag was taken by Russell James. (The flag image was used courtesy of the collection of the Galerie Monnin in Pétionville, Haiti — an important, intelligent, and sophisticated gallery, and my particular favorite. The Galerie Monnin has contributed a number of dazzling, astonishing works by Frantz Zephirin and Mario Benjamin and other contemporary Haitian artists to In Extremis, the current dizzying voodoo exhibit at the Fowler Museum at UCLA.)  

Voodoo flags are sometimes used during ceremonies to this day, but the larger, more elaborate ones are more often displayed as fine art (see my post, above, on voodoo flags).