The status of children matched the status of the mother, meaning that most mixed-race children were kept as slaves just like their black mothers, though some of the lightest-skinned children could run away and attempt to “pass” as white by hiding their racial identity.

Very few white men legally recognized the mixed-race children that came from these relations, as Dana urges Rufus to do at the end of Kindred. Despite this, the public perception painted black men as predators of white women, and warned against diluting the “purity” of the white race through these couplings. From accounts of the time period, it seems to have been a matter of course for white male slave masters to sexually abuse their female slaves, and less likely for white women to engage in relationships with black men. Much of the novel deals with the effects of two interracial relationships, though one is a legal marriage and the other is an arrangement in which a master takes sexual advantage of his slave. Her papers and manuscripts are now housed in the Huntington Library. In 1999, Butler moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington, where she lived until her death. She is most famous for the Patternist Series, the Xenogenesis Trilogy, and the Parable Series, with Kindred representing her most significant departure from more clearly science fiction work. In 1995, Butler was the first science fiction author to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” meant to sponsor brilliant work from the country’s leading artists. Butler has won numerous awards for her novels and short stories, including the Hugo for her short works Speech Sounds and Bloodchild and the Nebula Award for her book The Parable of the Talents. With the publication of the Patternist Series and Kindred in 1979, Butler was able to support herself on her writing alone.

After graduating high school, Butler found many temporary jobs that allowed her to attend Pasadena City College at night and later write in the early mornings. A dreamy and introspective child, Butler found escape in books and writing. Butler grew up in the racial mix of Pasadena, experiencing segregation and discrimination first-hand as she watched her mother and female relatives withstand abuse as maids from their employers.

Octavia butler kindred book