Читать онлайн «Kindred»
Автор Октавия Батлер
"Octavia Butler sa writer who will be with us for a long, lo time, and
KINDRED
KINDRED
Octavia E. Butler
BEACON PRESS BOSTON
Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 1979 by Octavia E. Butler
Reader’s Guide © 2003 by Beacon Press
First published as a hardcover by Doubleday in 1979
First published as a Beacon paperback in 1988
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 14 13 12 11 10
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Butler, Octavia E.
Kindred / Octavia E. Butler ; with an afterword by Robert Crossley. p. cm. — (Black women writers series)
Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8070-8369-7 (alk. paper)
1. African American women—Fiction. 2. Los Angeles (Calif. )— Fiction. 3. Southern States—Fiction. 4. Slaveholders—Fiction. 5.
Time travel—Fiction. 6. Slavery—Fiction. 7. Slaves—Fiction. I. Title.II. Series.
PS3552. U827K5 2004
813'. 54—dc22
2003062862
Contents
PROLOGUE 9
THE RIVER 12
THE FIRE 18
THE FALL 52
THE FIGHT 108
THE STORM 189
THE ROPE 240
EPILOGUE 262
READER’S GUIDE 265
Critical Essay 265
Discussion Questions 285
Prologue
I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.
And I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and secu- rity I had not valued until it was gone. When the police released Kevin, he came to the hospital and stayed with me so that I would know I hadn’t lost him too.
But before he could come to me, I had to convince the police that he did not belong in jail. That took time. The police were shadows who appeared intermittently at my bedside to ask me questions I had to strug- gle to understand.
“How did you hurt your arm?” they asked. “Who hurt you?” My atten- tion was captured by the word they used: Hurt. As though I’d scratched my arm. Didn’t they think I knew it was gone?
