Octavia E. Butler | |
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 Butler signing a copy ofFledgling in 2005 | |
| Born | Octavia Estelle Butler (1947-06-22)June 22, 1947 Pasadena, California, U.S. |
| Died | February 24, 2006(2006-02-24) (aged 58) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | Pasadena City College (AA) California State University, Los Angeles |
| Period | 1970–2006[1] |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Notable awards | MacArthur Fellow Hugo Award Nebula Award See list |
| Signature | |
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| Website | |
| Official website | |
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an Americanscience fiction andspeculative fiction writer who won several awards for her works, includingHugo,Locus, andNebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive aMacArthur Fellowship.[2][3]
Born inPasadena, California, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. She was extremely shy as a child, but Butler found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Butler attended community college during theBlack Power movement in the 1960s. While participating in a localwriter's workshop, she was encouraged to attend theClarion Workshop which focused on science fiction.[4][5] She sold her first stories soon after, and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author to be able to write full-time.
Butler's books and short stories drew the favorable attention of critics and the public, and awards soon followed. She also taught writer's workshops, and spoke about her experiences as anAfrican American, using such themes in science fiction. She eventually relocated toWashington. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. Her papers are held in the research collection of theHuntington Library inSan Marino, California.[6]
Octavia Estelle Butler was born inPasadena, California, the only child of Octavia Margaret Guy, a housemaid, and Laurice James Butler, ashoeshiner. Butler's father died when she was seven years old.[7][8] She was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in what she would later recall as a strictBaptist environment.[9]
Growing up in Pasadena, Butler experienced limited cultural and ethnic diversity in the midst of de factoracial segregation in the surrounding area. She accompanied her mother to her cleaning work where, as workers, the two entered white people's houses through back doors. Her mother was treated poorly by her employers.[10][11][12]
I began writing about power because I had so little.
From an early age, an almost paralyzing shyness made it difficult for Butler to socialize with other children. Her awkwardness, paired with a slightdyslexia that made schoolwork a torment, made Butler an easy target for bullies.[13] She believed that she was "ugly and stupid, clumsy, and socially hopeless."[14] As a result, she frequently spent her time reading at thePasadena Central Library.[15] She also wrote extensively in her "big pink notebook".[14]
Hooked at first onfairy tales and horse stories, Butler quickly became interested inscience fiction magazines, such asAmazing Stories,Galaxy Science Fiction, andThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She began reading stories byJohn Brunner,Zenna Henderson, andTheodore Sturgeon.[12][16]
Why aren't there more SF [science fiction] Black writers? There aren't because there aren't. What we don't see, we assume can't be. What a destructive assumption.
At the age of 10, Butler begged her mother to buy her aRemington typewriter, on which she "pecked [her] stories two fingered."[14] At 12, she watched the filmDevil Girl from Mars (1954) and concluded that she could write a better story. She drafted what would later become the basis for herPatternist novels.[16] Until then unaware of the obstacles that a black female writer could encounter, she became unsure of herself for the first time at the age of 13, when her well-intentioned Aunt Hazel said: "Honey ... Negroes can't be writers."[18] But Butler persevered in her desire to publish a story, and even asked her junior high school science teacher, William Pfaff, to type the first manuscript she submitted to a science fiction magazine.[14][19]
After graduating fromJohn Muir High School in 1965, Butler worked during the day and attendedPasadena City College (PCC) at night.[19] As a freshman at PCC, she won a college-wide short-story contest, earning her first income ($15) as a writer.[14] She also got the "germ of the idea" for what would become her novelKindred. An African-American classmate involved in theBlack Power movement loudly criticized previous generations of African Americans for being subservient to whites. As Butler explained in later interviews, the young man's remarks were a catalyst that led her to respond with a story providing historical context for the subservience, showing that it could be understood as silent but courageous survival.[11][20] In 1968, Butler graduated from PCC with anassociate of arts degree with a focus in history.[9][12]
Who am I? I am a forty-seven-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. I am also comfortably asocial—a hermit. ... A pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.
Although Butler's mother wanted her to become a secretary in order to have a steady income,[11] Butler continued to work at a series oftemporary jobs. She preferred less demanding work that would allow her to get up at two or three in the morning to write. Success continued to elude her. She styled her stories after the white-and-male-dominated science fiction she had grown up reading.[10][14] She enrolled atCalifornia State University, Los Angeles, but switched to taking writing courses throughUCLA Extension.
During the Open Door Workshop of theWriters Guild of America West, a program designed to mentor minority writers, her writing impressed one of the teachers, noted science-fiction writerHarlan Ellison. He encouraged her to attend the six-weekClarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop inClarion, Pennsylvania. There, Butler met the Black science fiction writerSamuel R. Delany, who became a longtime friend.[21] She also sold her first stories: "Childfinder" to Ellison, for his unpublished anthologyThe Last Dangerous Visions (eventually published inUnexpected Stories in 2014[22][23]); and"Crossover" toRobin Scott Wilson, the director of the Clarion workshop, who published it in the 1971 Clarion anthology.[9][12][19][24]
For the next five years, Butler worked on the novels that became known as thePatternist series:Patternmaster (1976),Mind of My Mind (1977), andSurvivor (1978). In 1978, she was able to stop working at temporary jobs and live on her income from writing.[12] She took a break from the Patternist series to research and write a stand-alone novel,Kindred (1979). She finished the Patternist series withWild Seed (1980) andClay's Ark (1984).
Butler's rise to prominence began in 1984 when "Speech Sounds" won theHugo Award for Short Story and, a year later, "Bloodchild" won the Hugo Award, theLocus Award, and theScience Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Novelette. In the meantime, Butler traveled to theAmazon rainforest and theAndes to do research for what would become theXenogenesis trilogy:Dawn (1987),Adulthood Rites (1988), andImago(1989).[12] These stories were republished in 2000 as the collectionLilith's Brood.
During the 1990s, Butler completed the novels that strengthened her fame as a writer:Parable of the Sower (1993) andParable of the Talents (1998). In addition, in 1995, she became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded aJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundationfellowship, an award that came with a prize of $295,000.[25][26]
In 1999, after her mother's death, Butler moved toLake Forest Park, Washington.The Parable of the Talents had won theScience Fiction Writers of America'sNebula Award for Best Novel, and she had plans for four more Parable novels:Parable of the Trickster,Parable of the Teacher,Parable of Chaos, andParable of Clay. However, after several failed attempts to beginThe Parable of the Trickster, she decided to stop work in the series.[27]
In later interviews, Butler explained that the research and writing of the Parable novels had overwhelmed and depressed her, so she had shifted to composing something "lightweight" and "fun" instead. This became her last book, the science-fictionvampire novelFledgling (2005).[28]
Butler's first work published was "Crossover" in the 1971 Clarion Workshop anthology. She also sold the short story "Childfinder" to Harlan Ellison for the anthologyThe Last Dangerous Visions. "I thought I was on my way as a writer", Butler recalled in her short-fiction collectionBloodchild and Other Stories, which contains "Crossover." "In fact, I had five more years of rejection slips and horrible little jobs ahead of me before I sold another word."[29]
Starting in 1974, Butler worked on a series of novels that would later be collected as thePatternist series, which depicts the transformation of humanity into three genetic groups: the dominant Patternists, humans who have been bred with heightenedtelepathic powers and are bound to the Patternmaster via apsionic chain; their enemies the Clayarks,disease-mutated animal-likesuperhumans; and the Mutes, ordinary humans bonded to the Patternists.[27]
The first novel,Patternmaster (1976), eventually became the last installment in the series' internal chronology. Set in the distant future, it tells of thecoming-of-age of Teray, a young Patternist who fights for position within Patternist society and eventually for the role of Patternmaster.[25]
Next cameMind of My Mind (1977), a prequel toPatternmaster set in the 20th century. The story follows the development of Mary, the creator of the psionic chain and the first Patternmaster to bind all Patternists, and her inevitable struggle for power with her father Doro, aparapsychological vampire who seeks to retain control over the psionic children he has bred over the centuries.[9][12]
To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go.
The third book of the series,Survivor, was published in 1978. The titular survivor is Alanna, the adopted child of the Missionaries,fundamentalist Christians who have traveled to another planet to escape Patternist control and Clayark infection. Captured by a local tribe called the Tehkohn, Alanna learns their language and adopts their customs, knowledge which she then uses to help the Missionaries avoid bondage and assimilation into a rival tribe that opposes the Tehkohn.[25][30] Butler would later call Survivor the least favorite of her books, and withdraw it from reprinting.
AfterSurvivor, Butler took a break from the Patternist series to write what would become her best-selling novel,Kindred (1979), as well as the short story "Near of Kin" (1979).[25] InKindred, Dana, an African-American woman, is repeatedly transported in time between 1976 Los Angeles and an early 19th-century plantation on theEastern Shore of Maryland. There she meets ancestors: Alice, afree black womanforced into slavery later in life, and Rufus, the white son of aplanter who also becomes aslaveholder. In "Near of Kin", the protagonist discovers a taboo relationship in her family as she goes through her mother's things after her death.[25]
In 1980, Butler published the fourth book of the Patternist series,Wild Seed, whose narrative became the series' origin story. Set in Africa and America during the 17th century,Wild Seed traces the struggle between the four-thousand-year-oldparapsychological vampire Doro and his "wild" child and bride, the three-hundred-year-old shapeshifter and healer Anyanwu. Doro, who has bredpsionic children for centuries, deceives Anyanwu into becoming one of his breeders, but she eventually escapes and uses her gifts to create communities that rival Doro's. When Doro finally tracks her down, Anyanwu, tired by decades of escaping or fighting Doro, decides to commit suicide, forcing him to admit his need for her.[9][12][25]
In 1983, Butler published "Speech Sounds", a story set in apost-apocalypticLos Angeles where apandemic has caused most humans to lose their ability to read, speak, or write. For many, this impairment is accompanied by uncontrollable feelings of jealousy, resentment, and rage. "Speech Sounds" received the 1984Hugo Award for Best Short Story.[25]
In 1984, Butler released the last book of the Patternmaster series,Clay's Ark. Set in theMojave Desert, it focuses on a colony of humans infected by an extraterrestrial microorganism brought to Earth by the one surviving astronaut of the spaceship Clay's Ark. As the microorganism compels its hosts to spread it, the infected humans kidnap others to infect them and, in the case of women, give birth to the mutant,sphinx-like children who will be the first members of the Clayark race.[9]
Butler followedClay's Ark with the critically acclaimed short story "Bloodchild" (1984). Set on an alien planet, it depicts the complex relationship between human refugees and the insect-like aliens who keep them in a preserve to protect them, but also to use them as hosts for breeding their young. Sometimes called Butler's "pregnant man story," "Bloodchild" won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award.[25]
Three years later, Butler publishedDawn, the first installment of what would become known as theXenogenesis trilogy. The series examines the theme of alienation by creating situations in which humans are forced to coexist with other species to survive and extends Butler's recurring exploration of genetically altered, hybrid individuals and communities.[9][27] InDawn, protagonist Lilith Iyapo finds herself in a spaceship after surviving a nuclear apocalypse that destroys Earth. Saved by theOankali aliens, the human survivors must combine their DNA with an ooloi, the Oankali'sthird sex, in order to create a new race that eliminates a self-destructive flaw in humans: their aggressive hierarchical tendencies.[25] Butler followedDawn with "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (1987), a story about how certain females with "Duryea-Gode Disease", a genetic disorder which causesdissociative states, obsessiveself-mutilation, and violent psychosis, are able to control others with the disease.[25]
Adulthood Rites (1988) andImago (1989), the second and the third books in the Xenogenesis trilogy, focus on the predatory and prideful tendencies that affect human evolution, as humans now revolt against Lilith's Oankali-engineered progeny. Set thirty years after humanity's return to Earth,Adulthood Rites centers on the kidnapping of Lilith's part-human, part alien child, Akin, by a human-only group who are against the Oankali. Akin learns about both aspects of his identity through his life with the humans as well as the Akjai. The Oankali-only group becomes their mediator, and ultimately creates a human-onlycolony on Mars.[25] InImago, the Oankali create a third species more powerful than themselves: the shape-shifting healer Jodahs, a human-Oankali ooloi who must find suitable human male and female mates to survive its metamorphosis and who finds them in the most unexpected of places, in a village of renegade humans.[9][12]
In the mid-1990s, Butler published two novels later designated as the Parable (or Earthseed) series. The books depict the struggle of the Earthseed community to survive the socioeconomic and political collapse of 21st-century America due to poorenvironmental stewardship, corporate greed, and thegrowing gap between the wealthy and the poor.[25][31] The books propose alternate philosophical views and religious interventions as solutions to such dilemmas.[9]
The first book in the series,Parable of the Sower (1993), introduces the fifteen-year-old protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, and is set in adystopianCalifornia in the 2020s. Lauren, who lives with a syndrome causing her to literally feel any physical pain she witnesses, struggles with the religious beliefs and physical isolation of her hometown Robledo. She forms a new belief system, Earthseed, which posits a future for the human race on other planets. When Robledo is destroyed and Lauren's family and neighbors killed, she and two other survivors flee north. Recruiting members of varying social backgrounds along the way, Lauren relocates her new group toNorthern California, naming her new community Acorn.
Butler's 1998 follow-up novel,Parable of the Talents, is set some time after Lauren's death and is told through the excerpts of Lauren's journals, as framed by the commentary of her estranged daughter, Larkin.[9] It details the invasion of Acorn by right-wing fundamentalist Christians, Lauren's attempts to survive their religious "re-education," and the final triumph of Earthseed as a community and a doctrine.[25][32]
Between her Earthseed novels, Butler published the collectionBloodchild and Other Stories (1995), which includes the short stories "Bloodchild," "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," "Near of Kin," "Speech Sounds," and "Crossover," as well as the non-fiction pieces "Positive Obsession" and "Furor Scribendi".[33]
After several years ofwriter's block, Butler published the short stories "Amnesty" (2003) and "The Book of Martha" (2003), and her second standalone novel,Fledgling (2005). Both short stories focus on how impossible conditions force an ordinary woman to make a distressing choice.[34] In "Amnesty", an alien abductee recounts her painful abuse at the hand of the unwitting aliens and upon her release, by humans, and explains why she chose to work as a translator for the aliens now that the Earth's economy is in a deep depression. In "The Book of Martha", God asks a middle-aged African-American novelist to make one important change to fix humanity's destructive ways. Martha's choice—to make humans have vivid and satisfying dreams—means that she will no longer be able to do what she loves in writing fiction.[25] These two stories were added to the 2005 edition ofBloodchild and Other Stories.[25]
Butler's last publication during her lifetime wasFledgling, a novel exploring the culture of avampire community living insymbiosis with humans.[10] Set on theWest Coast, it tells of thecoming-of-age of a young female hybrid vampire named Shori, whose species is called Ina. The only survivor of a vicious attack on her families that left her an amnesiac, she must seek justice for her dead, build a new family, and relearn how to be an Ina.[25] Scholars like Susana M. Morris readFledgling as a powerful disruption of the vampire genre—a genre which tends to feature pale vampire heroes with paternalist tendencies that privilege whiteness. Butler disrupts this narrative by centering Shori, the protagonist ofFledgling, a petite Black female Ina.[35]
During her last years, Butler struggled withwriter's block anddepression, partly caused by the side effects of medication forhigh blood pressure.[19][36] She continued writing and taught at Clarion's Science Fiction Writers' Workshop regularly. In 2005, she was inducted intoChicago State University's International Black Writers Hall of Fame.[10]
Butler died outside of her home inLake Forest Park, Washington, on February 24, 2006, aged 58.[13] Contemporary news accounts were inconsistent as to the cause of her death, with some reporting that she had a fatalstroke and others indicating that she died of head injuries after falling and striking her head on her cobbled walkway.[37] Another interpretation, backed byLocus magazine, is that a stroke caused the fall and the subsequent head injuries.[38]
Butler maintained a longstanding relationship with theHuntington Library and bequeathed her papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, school papers, notebooks, and photographs, to the library in her will.[39] The collection, comprising 9,062 pieces in 386 boxes, 1 volume, 2 binders and 18 broadsides, was made available to scholars and researchers in 2010.[40] Butler donated one of her typewriters to Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Community Museum for a 2003-2004 exhibition celebrating Black American literature.[41]
In multiple interviews and essays, Butler explained her view of humanity: inherently flawed by an innate tendency towardshierarchical thinking which leads totribalism,caste, intolerance, violence and, if not checked, the ultimate destruction of our species.[9][12][42]
"Simplepeck-order bullying", she wrote in her essay "A World without Racism",[43] "is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead toracism,sexism,ethnocentrism,classism, and all the other 'isms' that cause so much suffering in the world." Her stories, then, often replay humanity's domination of the weak by the strong as a type ofparasitism.[42] These "others", whether aliens, vampires, superhuman, or slave masters, find themselves defied by a protagonist who embodies difference, diversity, and change, so that, as John R. Pfeiffer notes, "In one sense [Butler's] fables are trials of solutions to the self-destructive condition in which she finds mankind."[12]
Embrace diversity
Unite—
or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.
In his essay on thesociobiological backgrounds of Butler'sXenogenesis trilogy, J. Adam Johns describes how Butler's narratives counteract thedeath drive behind the hierarchical impulse with an innate love of life (biophilia), particularly of different, strange life.[44] Specifically, Butler's stories featuregene manipulation, interbreeding,interracial marriage andmiscegenation,symbiosis, mutation, alien contact,rape,intersectionality, contamination, and other forms of hybridity as the means to correct the sociobiological causes of hierarchical violence.[45] As De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai note, "in [Butler's] narratives the undoing of the human body is both literal and metaphorical, for it signifies the profound changes necessary to shape a world not organized by hierarchical violence."[46] The evolutionary maturity achieved by the bioengineered hybrid protagonist at the end of the story, then, signals the possible evolution of the dominant community in terms of tolerance, acceptance of diversity, and a desire to wield power responsibly.[42]
Butler's protagonists are disenfranchised individuals who endure, compromise, and embrace radical change in order to survive. As De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai note, her stories focus on minority characters whose historical background makes them already intimate with brutal violation and exploitation, and therefore the need to compromise to survive.[46] Even when endowed with extra, paranormal abilities, these characters are forced to experience unprecedented physical, mental, and emotional distress and exclusion to ensure a minimal degree ofagency and to prevent humanity from achieving self-destruction.[9][18] In many of her stories, their acts of courage become acts of understanding, and in some cases, love, as they reach a crucial compromise with those in power.[42] Ultimately, Butler's focus on disenfranchised characters serves to illustrate both the historical exploitation of minorities and how the resolve of one such exploited individual may bring on critical change.[9]
Butler's stories feature mixed communities founded by African protagonists and populated by diverse, if similar-minded individuals. Members may be humans of African, European, or Asian descent, extraterrestrial (such as the N'Tlic inBloodchild), from a different species (such as the vampiric Ina inFledgling), and cross-species (such as the human-Oankali Akin and Jodahs in theXenogenesis trilogy). In some stories, the community's hybridity results in a flexible view of sexuality and gender (for instance, thepolyamorous extended families inFledgling). Thus, Butler creates bonds between groups that are generally considered to be separate and unrelated, and suggests hybridity as "the potential root of good family and blessed community life".[46]
Kindred is one of the only works of 20th-century American literature to feature amarried interracial couple.[citation needed] As Farah Peterson comments, in an American society gripped by racism, it took "a fantasy novelist... to imagine how one of these marriages would work in practice" and write the possibility of such a relationship into literary history.[47]
Charlie Rose: "What then is central to what you want to say about race?"
Butler: "Do I want to say something central about race? Aside from, 'Hey we're here!'?"
Author Octavia E. Butler is known for blending science fiction with African American spiritualism.[49]
Butler's work has been associated with the genre ofAfrofuturism,[50] a term coined byMark Dery to describe "speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of 20th-centurytechnoculture".[51] Some critics, however, have noted that while Butler's protagonists are of African descent, the communities they create are multi-ethnic and, sometimes, multi-species. AsDe Witt Douglas Kilgore andRanu Samantrai explain in their 2010 memorial to Butler, while keeping "anafro-centric sensibility at the core of narratives", her "insistence on hybridity beyond the point of discomfort" and grim themes deny both the ethnocentricescapism of afrofuturism and the sanitized perspective of white-dominatedliberal pluralism.[46]
Wild Seed, of the Patternist series, is considered to particularly fit ideas of Afrofuturist thematic concerns, as the narrative of two immortal Africans Doro and Anyanwu features science fiction technologies and analternate anti-colonialist history of seventeenth-century America.[52][53]
Butler began reading science fiction at a young age, but quickly became disenchanted by the genre's unimaginative portrayal of ethnicity and class as well as by its lack of noteworthy female protagonists.[54] She determined to correct those gaps by, as De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai point out, "choosing to write self-consciously as an African-American woman marked by a particular history"[46]—what Butler herself referred to as "writing myself in."[13] Butler's stories, therefore, are usually written from the perspective of a marginalized black woman whose difference from the dominant agents increases her potential for reconfiguring the future of her society.[46]
Publishers and critics have labelled Butler's work as science fiction.[9] While Butler enjoyed the genre deeply, calling it "potentially the freest genre in existence,"[55] she resisted being branded agenre writer.[19] Her narratives have drawn attention of people from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds.[18] She claimed to have three loyal audiences: black readers, science-fiction fans, and feminists.[46]
The New York Times regarded her novels as "evocative" and "often troubling" explorations of "far-reaching issues of race, sex, power".[13] Writing inThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,Orson Scott Card called her examination of humanity "clear-headed and brutally unsentimental",[56] andThe Village Voice'sDorothy Allison described her as "writing the most detailed social criticism" where "the hard edge of cruelty, violence, and domination is described in stark detail".[57]Locus regarded her as "one of those authors who pay serious attention to the way human beings actually work together and against each other, and she does so with extraordinary plausibility."[58] TheHouston Post ranked her "among the best SF writers, blessed with a mind capable of conceiving complicated futuristic situations that shed considerable light on our current affairs."[59]
Some scholars have focused on Butler's choice to write from the point of view of marginal characters and communities and thus "expanded SF to reflect the experiences and expertise of the disenfranchised".[46] While surveying Butler's novels, criticBurton Raffel noted how race and gender influence her writing: "I do not think any of these eight books could have been written by a man, as they most emphatically were not, nor, with the single exception of her first book,Pattern-Master (1976), are likely to have been written, as they most emphatically were, by anyone but an African American."[60] Robert Crossley commended how Butler's "feminist aesthetic" works to expose sexual, racial, and culturalchauvinism because it is "enriched by a historical consciousness that shapes the depiction of enslavement both in the real past and in imaginary pasts and futures."[46]
Butler's prose has been praised by critics including theWashington Post Book World, where her craftsmanship has been described as "superb",[61] and by Burton Raffel, who regards Butler's prose as "carefully, expertly crafted" and "crystalline, at its best, sensuous, sensitive, exact, not in the least directed at calling attention to itself".[60]
In interviews with Charles Rowell andRandall Kenan, Butler credited the struggles of her working-class mother as an important influence on her writing.[11][62] Because Butler's mother received little formal education herself, she made sure that young Butler was given the opportunity to learn by bringing her reading materials that her white employers threw away, from magazines to advanced books.[14] She also encouraged Butler to write. She bought her daughter her first typewriter when she was 10 years old, and, seeing her hard at work on a story casually remarked that maybe one day she could become a writer, causing Butler to realize that it was possible to make a living as an author.[9] A decade later, Mrs. Butler would pay more than a month's rent to have an agent review her daughter's work.[14] She also provided Butler with the money she had been saving for dental work to pay for Butler's scholarship so she could attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, where Butler sold her first two stories.[25]
A second person to play an influential role in Butler's work was the American writerHarlan Ellison. As a teacher at the Open Door Workshop of theScreen Writers Guild of America, he gave Butler her first honest and constructive criticism on her writing after years of lukewarm responses from composition teachers and baffling rejections from publishers.[18] Impressed by her work, Ellison suggested she attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop and even contributed $100 towards her application fee. As the years passed, Ellison's mentorship became a close friendship.[25]
Butler herself has been highly influential in legacy of science fiction, particularly for people of color. In 2015, writersadrienne maree brown andWalidah Imarisha co-editedOctavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (AK Press), a collection of 20 short stories and essays aboutsocial justice, inspired by Butler.[63] In 2020, brown and Toshi Reagon, creator of an opera adaptation ofParable of the Sower, began collaborating on a podcast calledOctavia's Parables.[64]
Parable of the Sower was adapted asParable of the Sower: The Opera, written by American folk/blues musicianToshi Reagon in collaboration with her mother, singer and composerBernice Johnson Reagon. The adaptation's libretto and musical score combine African-Americanspirituals,soul,rock and roll, andfolk music into rounds to be performed by singers sitting in a circle. It was first performed as part ofThe Public Theater's 2015Under the Radar Festival in New York City.[65][66]
Kindred was adapted as agraphic novel by author Damien Duffy and artistJohn Jennings [d]. The adaptation was published by Abrams ComicsArts on January 10, 2017.[67] To visually differentiate the time periods in which Butler set the story, Jennings used muted colors for the present and vibrant ones for the past to demonstrate how the remnants and relevance of slavery are still with us.[68] The graphic novel adaption debuted as number oneNew York Times hardcover graphic book bestseller on January 29, 2017.[69] After the success ofKindred, Duffy and Jennings also adaptedParable of the Sower as a graphic novel.[70] They also plan on releasing an adaptation ofParable of the Talents.[71]
Dawn is currently being adapted for television by producersAva DuVernay and Charles D. King's Macro Ventures, alongside writerVictoria Mahoney.[72] There is no projected release date for the adaptation yet. A television series based onWild Seed is also in the works forAmazon Prime Video with a screenplay co-written byNnedi Okorafor andWanuri Kahiu.[73]
In 2021,FX ordered an eight-episode miniseries,Kindred, based on Butler's book of the same name.[74] The show was developed byBranden Jacobs-Jenkins and premiered on December 13, 2022.
In 2006, theCarl Brandon Society established the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship in Butler's memory, to enable writers of color to attend the annual Clarion West Writers Workshop andClarion Writers' Workshop, descendants of the original Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop inClarion, Pennsylvania, where Butler got her start. The first scholarships were awarded in 2007.[96]
In March 2019, Butler's alma mater,Pasadena City College, announced the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship for students enrolled in the Pathways program and committed to transfer to four-year institutions.[97]
The memorial scholarships sponsored by the Carl Brandon Society and Pasadena City College help fulfill three of thelife goals Butler had handwritten in a notebook from 1988:[98][99]
"I will send poor black youngsters to Clarion or other writer's workshops
"I will help poor black youngsters broaden their horizons
"I will help poor black youngsters go to college"
A complete bibliography of Butler's work was compiled in 2008 by Calvin Ritch.[100]
Patternist series (in chronological order):
Xenogenesis, orLilith's Brood series:
Parable, orEarthseed series:
Stand-alones:
Collections:
Several of Octavia's works were not completed:[104]
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