On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Anne V Stuecker wrote:
> sue hagedorn <hagedors@VT.EDU> writes:
>
> >In the Afterword for "Bloodchild" she writes:
> >
> > "It amazes me that some people have seen "Bloodchild" as a
> >story of slavery. It isn't."
>
> Wow, my professor's all wrong (Yes! I love it when that happens.).
>
> I read Bloodchild in an anthology that doesn't have this Afterword. Can
> you tell me where you found it?
>
>
> Anne Stuecker <avs5@juno.com> Washington, DC, USA
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Nicola Griffith said in an earlier post, more or less, how far can we
trust an author when her statements about a story seem contradicted by
the story itself?
"Bloodchild" is about a human being forced to act as womb/first meal for
an intelligent alien insect, but it's not about slavery? Well maybe not
entirely, but... Actually this image of forced interspecies or
inter-racial procreation occurs over and over again in Butler's work.
It's the basic premis of Xenogenesis after all, which concerns a species
whose primary biological imperative is to interbreed with other species
whether they want to or not. It's also a concern in Kindred, where a
20th century African American woman discovers that she has a white
ancestor, and also plays a role in the Patternmaster series.
Mike Levy
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