The savage, naked face of slavery is revealed in KINDRED, by Octavia Butler.

[raccoon]

Dana, a young black woman living in 1976 Los Angeles, is transported back in time to save the life of her ancestor, a slaveowner in antebellum Maryland. In the course of the novel, she is transported five times. Each time, the story grows darker.

In Maryland, Dana is treated as a slave, and her experiences as a slave, as well as those of other slaves in the novel, vividly illustrate how utterly powerless the slaves were.

I just finished KINDRED and I highly recommend it.

[donsu]

1. yes - good book and good writer.

read Kindred when it first was published.

her books are most interesting. she might do short stories too, if I remember correctly.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Another look at life for African-Americans pre-Civil War is the

mystery series written by Barbara Hambly. The main character is Benjamin January, born a slave but freed when his mother becomes the mistress of a wealthy Frenchman in New Orleans. He is sent to France to be educated and returns qualified as a physician but not allowed to practice. His sister Olympe has rejected the white world completely and lives as a voodoo practitioner. He has a half sister named Dominique, daughter of the Frenchman, who has herself become a mistress. These family connections give January a way into all strata of society.

In one book, January is asked to go "undercover" as a slave, and even in the other books, he has to keep his freedom papers on him at all times, because the worst danger for "a free man of color" (the title of the first book) is being grabbed off the street by slave traders and sold to some distant plantation.

The time of the novels is the early decades after the Louisiana Purchase, when the "Americans" are moving in on top of the French-Spanish-African culture of New Orleans.

[raccoon]

6. I love historical mysteries, so that one sounds like a twofer. I'll look into it. nt

[Bullwinkle925]

3. Thanks for the recommendation . . .

I purchased the book a couple of days ago. Sounds interesting to me.
I'm a fan of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" - it makes me have such admiration for anyone who survives anything like slavery and to survive with such spirit is indeed quite a feat!

[mzteris]

4. Octavia Butler was amazing!

I really like her strong female characters.


If you're interested in other slave truths by others,

Six Women's Slave Narratives (Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers) by William L. Andrews

Written by six black women, these stories embody most of the predominant themes and narrative forms found in African-American women's autobiographies from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (1831), the first female slave narrative from the Americas, recounts one woman's suffering and courage in the pursuit of freedom. The Story of Mattie J. Jackson (1866) not only tells of a quest for personal freedom, but also concludes with a family reunion in the North after the Civil War. The Memoir of Old Elizabeth, a Coloured Woman (1863) blends the traditions of the slave narrative and the spiritual autobiography together in a tale of a ninety-seven-year-old ex-slave who becomes a preacher. Lucy A. Delaney's From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom (c. 1891) records a former slave's life achievements in the quarter-century following the end of the Civil War. Kate Drumgoold, in A Slave Girl's Story, and Annie L. Burton, in Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days, also describe their successes in the postwar North while eulogizing black motherhood in the antebellum South. Each of these stories reveals the black woman's ability to recover in past oppression the hope for a better day.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195060830/smarterbooks-20

[raccoon]

5. Thank you! Since reading that I've been interested in slave narratives. nt

[iamjoy]

7. Good Book, Thanks For Suggesting

It was a very good read. The characters were compelling and it was well paced.

I also like that she didn't try that condescending mispelling to try and demonstrate how African Americans spoke. You know like "ah gwine" so you have to speak the words aloud to know that the character is supposed to be saying, "I'm going."

[lepus]

8. If I can find it

I'll buy it.

I have read most of her books. I loved the Xenogenesis series.

[Sequoia]

9. Thanks.