Kindred - by Octavia Butler (Paperback)

About the Book

"First published as a hardcover by Doubleday in 1979. First published as a Beacon paperback in 1988"--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

One of the 100 best novels ever published in English (The Guardian), most consequential novels of the past 100 years (The Atlantic), most essential books published in the U.S. since 1776 (Publishers Weekly)

"As you turn the pages of this novel and get lost in Dana's story, allow yourself to relive the horrors of slavery. . . . Allow yourself to know the pain of our nation's past."--Tomi Adeyemi, New York Times bestseller and Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author, from the new foreword

This brand new package for young adults includes a redesigned interior for better readability, specially commissioned cover art by Carlos Fama and spot gloss on cover elements

"I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm."

Dana, a 1970s Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

This young-adult edition includes a new foreword by Tomi Adeyemi, New York Times bestseller and Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of fantasy titles Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance. Adeyemi was also named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people and was named one of Forbes's 30 Under 30 in Media.

Review Quotes

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

About the Author

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the author of many novels, including Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Award and a Nebula Award, and she twice won the Hugo Award.