Read this when
Kindred
Everyone thinks they'd have resisted. Butler sends a modern woman back in time to find out, and it isn't that simple.
Who it's for
Dana is a modern woman who assumes she knows how she would act under slavery, and the novel steadily dismantles that assumption as she learns how quickly survival demands accommodation.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Kindred is Octavia E. Butler's 1979 novel about Dana, a 26-year-old African-American writer in 1976 Los Angeles. She is repeatedly pulled back in time to a plantation in antebellum Maryland, where she must keep alive Rufus Weylin, a white slaveholder's son who turns out to be her ancestor. Her white husband, Kevin, is eventually drawn into the past with her.
Where to find it
In print (Beacon Press); widely available from libraries (Libby/Hoopla) and as an audiobook; graphic-novel adaptation (2017). Not public domain. An FX TV adaptation aired in 2022.
Before you start
Heads up: Suicide and attempted rape.
Age: Ages 16+
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter X
