Kindred is the bestselling novel by American science-fiction author Octavia E. Butler. Part time-travel tale and part slave narrative, it was first published in 1979 and is still widely popular; it is regularly chosen as a text for community-wide reading programs and book organizations, as well as being a common choice for high school and college courses. While most of Butler's work is classified as science-fiction, Kindred crosses disciplinary boundaries and so is often shelved under literature or African-American literature. Butler has categorized the work as "a kind of grim fantasy."