‘Kindred’ to be Made into a Graphic Novel

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I’m tempted to call the late Octavia E. Butler an anomaly in the science fiction literary field but the fact remains there aren’t many female, African American writers in the genre. However, recent news came that the graphic novel rights to her 1979 novel, Kindred, were sold and her classic novel will soon be adapted into a graphic novel.

According to SF Scope, Writer’s House’s Merrilee Heifetz managed the deal on behalf of the Butler estate with Beacon Press Executive Director Helen Atwan. Beacon Press published a new hardcover edition of the book in December 2008, following their trade paperback in 2004.

According to the inside front cover, “Dana, a modern black woman, [who] is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.”

Butler, who died in February 2006 at the age of 58, won two Hugo Awards (1984, 1985), two Nebulas (1984, 1999), the lifetime achievement award in writing from the PEN AmericanCenter (2000), and a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant (1995).

On a sidenote, Merrilee Heifetz has asked for sample chapters of my manuscript Second Death and I’m still waiting for a response, whether she will represent me, ask for the full manuscript, or will reject me. Fingers crossed on this one!