Kindred can help readers see the danger of that tendency. In this climate, some are clinging to a conception of American progress that revolves around “transcending” race, rather than committing to dismantling racism. He launched his campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists,” and his administration initiated a “Muslim ban” and incarcerates immigrant children. In particular, Kindred pushes against the urge to respond to Trump’s naked racism with a renewed faith in colorblindness. Yet, Kindred, with its ties to the nineteenth-century past, has as much to offer those struggling with the current historical moment as does her apocalypse fiction. However, this text is generally ignored in discussions of Butler’s prescience. Kindred, Butler’s 1979 novel whose characters experience slavery through unexplained time travel, is enjoying robust sales, partly thanks to its 2017 graphic novel adaptation. Meanwhile, a Library of America volume is in the works that will include Fledgling (2005) and its vampire protagonist.

Parable of the Talents (1998), set in 2032 and offering a bleak portrait of the future, was recently re-published. As readers live with climate change and face a pandemic with remarkably unqualified people in charge, other Butler titles are commanding attention. This fulfilled one of its author’s goals, even if posthumously. With its stark picture of citizens desperate for water and safety, her 1993 novel Parable of the Sower became a New York Times bestseller in September 2020. Butler’s prescience have become more routine. Since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, acknowledgments of Octavia E.

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