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‘The Octavia Butler novel for our times’ THE ATLANTIC

‘My book of the year . . . completely devours the genre which gave rise to it’ JUNOT DÍAZ

The final ground-breaking novel from renowned, bestselling author Octavia E. Butler.


A young girl wakes up in the woods, gravely injured and alone, with no memory of what happened or who she is.

As Shori heals, she realises that she isn’t like the people around her, which leads to a shocking discovery. She is a fifty-three-year-old vampire, and in terrible danger.

To save herself, Shori must learn anew everything about the power and desires that she holds, the life that was stolen from her – and those who want her dead.

PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

‘In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time… for sheer peculiar prescience, Butler’s novel may be unmatched’ NEW YORKER

‘Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans. I think she can help each of us to do the same’ GLORIA STEINEM

‘Butler’s prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision’ GUARDIAN

‘One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century’ JUNOT DIAZ

‘Octavia Butler was a visionary’ VIOLA DAVIS

‘Her evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human’ NEW YORK TIMES

Reviews

One cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
[A] must-read novel
BBC
One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had
Junot Diaz
Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision
Guardian
[Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human
New York Times
No novel I've read this year has felt as relevant, as gut-wrenching or as essential... If you've ever tweeted "All Lives Matter", someone needs to shove Kindred into your hand, and quickly
The Pool
Kindred is that rare magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again
Harlan Ellison
Everyone should read at least one novel by the grand dame of science fiction, and Kindred is a perfect (and harrowing and disturbing and brilliant) place to start
Refinery 29
The immediate effect of reading Octavia Butler's Kindred is to make every other time travel book in the world look as if it's wimping out... This is a brilliant book, utterly absorbing, very well written, and deeply distressing. It's very hard to read, not because it's not good but because it's so good
Tor
A searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun
Kirkus
One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity
Los Angeles Times
If you haven't read Butler, you don't yet understand how rich the possibilities of science fiction can be
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Butler's books are exceptional
Village Voice
Few writers in our field are so good at blending page-turners with philosophical questions so seamlessly
Cory Doctorow
A dark, compelling and still horribly resonant time travel story
Independent
Impossible to turn away from once you've devoured the first few pages
Starburst