Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

The author

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the author of many novels, including Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Award and a Nebula Award, and she twice won the Hugo Award.