“Kindred” by Octavia E. Butler (1979)
For a class I had to read Butler’s “Fledgling” which is also her last book and I pretty much ran through it in two days – notes and all. I was amazed, it was easily read and understood yet had such a wide range of important topics all well spelled out. Butler topics are most importantly race, gender, age, but she manages to put spaces of queer identity into the representation of sexuality. At least that’s what I read into it (I am actually writing a paper about it… hopefully until Tuesday).
“Kindred” is her first novel that was not part of a series. She wrote it while working on the “Patternist”-Series. It is the story of Edana – who’s always called Dana – who is pulled into a different time by an ancestor. Unfortunately the time is 1815, the place is Maryland (by then still a slave-holding state), and Dana is an African-American woman. She goes back in time to help mentioned ancestor who himself is the son of a slave-holder. She saves his life time and again and finally sees his daughter being born – the daughter who is also her ancestor but born by a slave.
But Dana is not only observer, she becomes a slave herself. She is beaten, she is abused (though not sexually), and finally has to make the decision to safe herself.
This is a powerful book where slavery is revisited through the eyes of a woman living in the 1970s. She herself is married to a white man in California. The book is in part Science-Fiction, in part historical novel. It is shocking, it is thrilling, and not an entirely easy read.
Unfortunately for me it does not really fit into the topic of my paper but I am still glad I read it. Octavia Butler had a rare talent and I will go on reading her books for the pleasure they give me and for the thoughts they evoke. Make sure to check her out.
Read On!
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