by Shalynn Vaughn

Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred (1979) is an influential novel that combines the horror, hopelessness, and heroism of slave narratives with the fantasy of science fiction into a beautifully woven tale. The story follows Dana, a young black woman, on a journey as she suddenly finds herself being sent through time and transported across the United States into Pre-Civil War Maryland. The novel pendulums between the truths most often felt in slave narratives such as physical and sexual assault, and the unexplainable events that could only exist in realms very much unlike reality.

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