Here she is in an interview discussing this question:sfd: What kind of research goes into creating a book like Kindred?
OEB: Well, of course I did a lot of library research, and I went off to Maryland and did some on-the-spot research. I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn't really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black.
sfd: Is the book's location in Maryland a real place, or based on a real place?
OEB: Well, the eastern shore of Maryland is a real place. I didn't really make up any locations - except that particular plantation.
sfd: I my memory is correct, Alex Haley's Roots (at least the mini-series) came out about the time you were writing Kindred...
OEB: Actually, I don't think the mini-series had come out yet, but the book had come out and was a bestseller. When I was traveling around in Maryland, I kept running across little "Alex Haley was here" signs; you know, advertising that he had done research at that particular place. I was writing a completely different kind of book, so it didn't bother me. It at least let me know that I was in the right place to do research.
sfd: So it didn't have any specific influence on you?
OEB: I hadn't read it, no, because I really was doing a completely different kind of book. I wasn't trying to work out my own ancestry. I was trying to get people to feel slavery. I was trying to get across the kind of emotional and psychological stones that slavery threw at people.
sfd: It's interesting to look at the different venues in which Kindred is studied. Science fiction fans read it. It's used in women's studies, as well as courses about African-American history.
OEB: I tried to convince my original publishers of this but I don't think they ever quite believed me. I knew that I had at least three audiences. My work before this had been all science fiction, and even then I felt that I had three audiences, but I couldn't get anyone to really pay attention.
Google Maps Eastern Shore Maryland
It makes sense to consider Kindred in the context of many responses to slavery artists have built upon. Here are some links to explore and ponder as or after Kindred has shaken you intellectually, emotionally and politically:
• In 2007 35 students from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Morgan State University produced the exhibition At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland which was exhibited at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture (RFLM) and the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS).
Were artists-in-residence. Commissioned artists were:
- William Christenberry
- Linda Day Clark
- Maren Hassinger
- Sam Christian Holmes
- Whitfield Lovell
- Michael B. Platt
- Joyce J. Scott
• MOMA's online images of Glenn Ligon's artwork, especially "Runaways" (1993)
• the Netropolitan's web museum featuring the artwork of Betya Saar
• an account of Fred Wilson's Mining the Museum exhibition in 1992 at the Maryland Historical Society, in which one could see household silver next to slave shackles, all from the society's collections
• links to online resources on Slave Narratives, the materials upon which much of Kindred is based
• at UVA's art museum a current exhibition is Landscape of Slavery, The Plantation in American Art
• Washington, D.C.'s Free the Slaves online organizing against modern slavery
As part of the 2001 UN World Conference on Racism the US National Public Radio offered a rich set of resources for considering this issue of reparations online.
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