KINDRED

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) is the New York Times best-selling author of many novels, including Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She was the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, a PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award, 2 Nebula Awards, and 3 Hugo Awards, among others.

“In Kindred, Octavia Butler creates a road for the impossible and a balm for the unbearable. It is everything the literature of science fiction can be.” —Walter Mosley

“Butler’s characters are so vivid and the racist milieu in which they struggle to survive so realistically depicted that one cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art with much to say about love, hate, slavery, and racial dilemmas, then and now.” —Sam Frank, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner

“Like emotion that uplifts and enriches, like exquisite music or the taste of some special candy remembered from childhood, I never wanted Kindred to end. It overwhelmed me, dominated me, drew me on page after page. To express my total admiration and wonder for the originality of this surpassingly compelling novel, I am driven to a despised cliché I could not put it down! It is a book that simply will not be denied; its power is hypnotic. Kindred is a story that hurts I take that to be the surest indicator of genuine Art. It is an important novel, filled with powerful human insight and the shocking impact of the most commonplace experiences viewed in a new way, and it demands that once begun, the reader continue till it has done its work on the heart and mind and soul. Octavia Butler is a writer who will be with us for a long, long time, and Kindred is that rare, magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again, through the years, to learn, to be humbled, and to be renewed. Do not, I beg you, deny yourself this singular experience.”
—Harlan Ellison

“Truly terrifying. . . . A book you’ll find hard to put down.” —Essence

“Butler’s books are exceptional. . . . She is a realist, writing the most detailed social criticism and creating some of the most fascinating female characters in the genre . . . real women caught in impossible situations.” —Dorothy Allison, The Village Voice

“Butler’s literary craftsmanship is superb.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Her books are disturbing, unsettling… In a field dominated by white male authors, Butler’s African-American feminist perspective is unique, and uniquely suited to reshape the boundaries of the sci-fi genre.” —Bill Glass, L. A. Style

“One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity.” —Lynell George, Los Angeles Times

“This powerful novel about a modern black woman transported back in time to a slave plantation in the antebellum South is the perfect introduction to Butler’s work and perspectives for those not usually enamored of science fiction. . .A harrowing, haunting story.” —John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

1. Both Kevin and Dana know that they can’t change history. They say: “We’re in the middle of history. We surely can’t change it”; and “It’s over. . . . There’s nothing you can do to change any of it now.” What, then, is the purpose of Dana’s travels back to the antebellum South? Why must you, the reader, experience this journey with Dana?

2. “I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.” Dana says this to Kevin when they have returned to the present and are discussing their experiences in the antebellum South. Do we also in the twenty-first century still have conditioned responses to slavery?

3. Compare Dana’s “professional” life in the present (i.e., her temporary work) with her life as a slave.

4. When Dana and Kevin return from the past together, she thinks: “I felt as though I were losing my place here in my own time. Rufus’s time was a sharper, stronger reality.” Why would the twentieth century seem less vivid to Dana than the nineteenth century?

5. Dana loses her left arm as she emerges—for the last time in the novel—from the past. Why is this significant?

6. Kevin is stranded in the past for five years, while Dana is there for less than one year. Why did Butler feel Kevin needed to stay in the past so much longer than Dana? How have their experiences affected their relationship to each other and to the world around them?

7. After returning from his years in the nineteenth century, Kevin had attained “a slight accent.” Is this alteration symbolic of greater changes to come? How do you imagine Kevin and Dana’s relationship will progress following their reentry into life in 1976?

8. A common trend in the time travels of science fiction assumes that one should not tamper with the past, lest you disrupt the present. Butler obviously ignores this theory and her characters continue to invade each other’s lives. How does this influence the movement of the narrative? How does it convolute the idea of cause and effect?

9. Dana states: “It was that destructive single-minded love of his. He loved me. Not the way he loved Alice, thank God. He didn’t seem to want to sleep with me. But he wanted me around—someone to talk to, someone who would listen to him and care about what he said . . . ” How does the relationship between Dana and Rufus develop? How does it change? What are the different levels of love portrayed in Kindred?

10. Discuss the ways in which the title encapsulates the relationships within the novel. Is it ironic? Literal? Metaphorical? What emphasis do we place on our own kinship? How does it compare with that of the novel?