Kindred
Selected by The Atlantic as one of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS. ("You have to read them.")

From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner


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

Dana's 26th birthday celebration ends when she's ripped from 1976 California and thrust onto a Maryland slave plantation in 1815. Her mission: keep alive the white boy who will grow up to assault her ancestor—because without him, she'll never be born.

Every trip back grows more dangerous. Dana feels the lash, wears the chains, endures the daily terror that defined millions of lives. She can't just read about slavery's horrors—she lives them, bleeds from them, nearly breaks under them.

Butler doesn't let you observe from a safe distance. You're trapped in Dana's skin as she navigates impossible choices: submit to survive, or resist and risk everything. You'll feel her desperation as she fights to preserve her humanity while the plantation's brutality threatens to consume her.

This isn't historical fiction—it's time travel that cuts straight to the bone of American racism. Butler pioneered the neo-slavery narrative that inspired Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Water Dancer. But Kindred remains unmatched in its raw power to make slavery's legacy feel immediate, personal, and inescapable.

You'll finish this book changed. Dana's story will lodge itself in your chest and refuse to leave. You'll understand, in ways textbooks never taught you, how the past lives in our present—and why that matters more than ever.

Experience the novel that redefined American literature.

“Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.”
—N. K. Jemisin

This book has been published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped the cover available.
1100313555
Kindred
Selected by The Atlantic as one of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS. ("You have to read them.")

From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner


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

Dana's 26th birthday celebration ends when she's ripped from 1976 California and thrust onto a Maryland slave plantation in 1815. Her mission: keep alive the white boy who will grow up to assault her ancestor—because without him, she'll never be born.

Every trip back grows more dangerous. Dana feels the lash, wears the chains, endures the daily terror that defined millions of lives. She can't just read about slavery's horrors—she lives them, bleeds from them, nearly breaks under them.

Butler doesn't let you observe from a safe distance. You're trapped in Dana's skin as she navigates impossible choices: submit to survive, or resist and risk everything. You'll feel her desperation as she fights to preserve her humanity while the plantation's brutality threatens to consume her.

This isn't historical fiction—it's time travel that cuts straight to the bone of American racism. Butler pioneered the neo-slavery narrative that inspired Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Water Dancer. But Kindred remains unmatched in its raw power to make slavery's legacy feel immediate, personal, and inescapable.

You'll finish this book changed. Dana's story will lodge itself in your chest and refuse to leave. You'll understand, in ways textbooks never taught you, how the past lives in our present—and why that matters more than ever.

Experience the novel that redefined American literature.

“Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.”
—N. K. Jemisin

This book has been published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped the cover available.
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Kindred

Kindred

by Octavia E. Butler
Kindred

Kindred

by Octavia E. Butler

Paperback(Anniversary)

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

An Octavia Butler masterpiece, this time travel narrative is an enthralling and devastating deep dive into the horrors of slavery and the ripples that still rock the modern world and beyond. Credited as an inspiration for many modern science fiction writers, this book must be read by all.

Selected by The Atlantic as one of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS. ("You have to read them.")

From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner


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

Dana's 26th birthday celebration ends when she's ripped from 1976 California and thrust onto a Maryland slave plantation in 1815. Her mission: keep alive the white boy who will grow up to assault her ancestor—because without him, she'll never be born.

Every trip back grows more dangerous. Dana feels the lash, wears the chains, endures the daily terror that defined millions of lives. She can't just read about slavery's horrors—she lives them, bleeds from them, nearly breaks under them.

Butler doesn't let you observe from a safe distance. You're trapped in Dana's skin as she navigates impossible choices: submit to survive, or resist and risk everything. You'll feel her desperation as she fights to preserve her humanity while the plantation's brutality threatens to consume her.

This isn't historical fiction—it's time travel that cuts straight to the bone of American racism. Butler pioneered the neo-slavery narrative that inspired Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Water Dancer. But Kindred remains unmatched in its raw power to make slavery's legacy feel immediate, personal, and inescapable.

You'll finish this book changed. Dana's story will lodge itself in your chest and refuse to leave. You'll understand, in ways textbooks never taught you, how the past lives in our present—and why that matters more than ever.

Experience the novel that redefined American literature.

“Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.”
—N. K. Jemisin

This book has been published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped the cover available.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807083697
Publisher: Beacon Press
Publication date: 02/01/2004
Series: Holt McDougal Library Series
Edition description: Anniversary
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 5.44(w) x 7.76(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile: 580L (what's this?)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Prologue

The River

The Fire

The Fall

The Fight

The Storm

The Rope

Epilogue

Reader’s Guide

Critical Essay
Discussion Questions
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