Kindred

Kindred is an incredible read.

Classified as sci-fi due to the main character, Dana, jumping back in time to tell the story from a modern day perspective, this is a fantastical tale of historical fiction in which slavery was rampant in the antebellum south from 1812 onwards.

Fun fact: antebellum = before the American civil war in 1861.

Dana goes back to experience life as a slave but with certain story-related privileges, favored above the regular field hands subjected to the worst levels of brutality, but gradually giving you an insight as to what it must have been like during this historical period and how unbelievably harsh it was.

Think about it this way: millions of Jews were treated with grotesque barbarity and then mass exterminated at the end of WW2, but we often forget that black slaves were treated just a badly but over an extended period of time, making it seem less historically brutal than it actually was.

Octavia Butler does a brilliant job of telling the truth from an ingenious storyteller perspective with her straightforward prose and terminology, never pretentious or difficult to read, creating a time-travel adventure emotionally charged with ambiguous love and hatred, while constantly reminding you of the injustice of slavery and how incredibly unfair it was.

Thank you, Octavia, for opening my eyes a little bit wider than they were before. Everyone should read this book, whether it's for brutal historical facts or for storytelling brilliance.

Also look out for Beloved by Toni Morrison, which is more abstract and scary but with a similar insight into slavery.

I'm not usually a fan of these types of books, perhaps classified as black horror, but I am now. Next on my list is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, for further insight and to find out more.