Title: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Genre(s): historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, time travel

Publication: February 1st, 2004

Description:

This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given. (Goodreads)

If you look at the actual Goodreads page for this book, the first part of the description states, “The first science fiction written by a black woman.” You know, I very much doubt that. Is it the first science fiction written by a black woman that had been formally published in a white dominated field? Yes, that I can believe but I am sure they have been written for decades.

Now, this book sounds like an interesting time travel, historical fiction jaunt. I imagine that it includes a great deal of prejudices that Dana has to overcome and I’m certainly interested in picking up this and seeing how, or if, she accomplishes that.

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