I need to say straight away that I love the novel Kindred, which I read for a Black Women’s Writers class in college. It was an inspired choice to put on the syllabus that also included Song of Solomon, Brothers and Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell, Dessa Rose by Sherley Anne Williams among others. I think that that novel is a tremendous combination of sci fi, 1970s Black writing, political fire, angst, and a few other things all tied into one great novel. It shares some really important themes […]
Never forget your humanity, or that of other people.
Kindred is a first-person narrative of a woman, Dana, and her husband, Kevin, being pulled back in time to save the life of her ancestor, Rufus, who seems perpetually prone to disaster. The catch is that she’s African American and Rufus is white, and lives in Antebellum Maryland. I loved this book so hard. The germ of this book occurred to Octavia Butler after she heard the anger of a young black consciousness activist targeting the subservience in older generations towards oppressive white culture. Paired […]
Just Read This Book Already
I literally read this book 6 months ago, but kept putting off writing the review because there’s no way anything I can say will do any justice to Kindred. Seriously, Octavia Butler is working on a completely different level than most authors. If I were a teacher, I’d be pushing this on my students like crazy. Dana, a black woman, and Kevin, a white man, are a married couple living in the 1970s. They’re both very modern, educated people. On Dana’s 26th birthday, she is […]
Why did I wait so long to read this book?
I’m almost ashamed to admit that until this year, I had never read any Octavia Butler. When I went through my original SciFi reading phase in high school, she was never even mentioned amongst my nerd-kin friends, and now, though I’m late to the party, I know I have found one of the best writers, of any kind, of the modern age. Kindred is Butler’s best selling novel and is still required reading for many university and college writing and gender studies programs. The story […]