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In 1979, she published ''Kindred'', which she described as not science fiction but rather aa a "grim fantasy", about an African-American woman who is repeatedly thrown from 1976 to the [[ante-bellum]] South, where she is forced to deal with life in a culture based on slavery. ''Kindred'' became the most popular of all her books, with a quarter of a million copies curently in print. "I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you," she said of the book. [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/260959_butlerobit26ww.html]
In 1979, she published ''Kindred'', which she described as not science fiction but rather aa a "grim fantasy", about an African-American woman who is repeatedly thrown from 1976 to the [[ante-bellum]] South, where she is forced to deal with life in a culture based on slavery. ''Kindred'' became the most popular of all her books, with a quarter of a million copies curently in print. "I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you," she said of the book. [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/260959_butlerobit26ww.html]


In 1984, Butler's "Bloodchild" won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novelette. That same year, her "Speech Sounds" won the Hugo for best short story. In 1994, her novel ''[[Parable of the Sower]]'' was nominated for a Nebula for best novel, an award she finally took home in 2000 for ''[[Parable of the Talents]]''. In October 2000, she received an award for lifetime achievement in writing from the [[PEN American Center]].
In 1984, Butler's "Speech Sounds" won the Hugo award for best short story. The following year, her novelette "Bloodchild" won the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best short story. In 1994, her novel ''[[Parable of the Sower]]'' was nominated for a Nebula for best novel, an award she finally took home in 2000 for ''[[Parable of the Talents]]''. In October 2000, she received an award for lifetime achievement in writing from the [[PEN American Center]].


Butler moved to [[Seattle]] in November 1999. She described herself as "comfortably asocial--a hermit in the middle of Seattle--a [[pessimism|pessimist]] if I'm not careful, a [[feminist]], a [[Black (people)|Black]], a former [[Baptist]], an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." [http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/85/184/index.html] She was a [[lesbian]]. [http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid26237.asp]
Butler moved to [[Seattle]] in November 1999. She described herself as "comfortably asocial--a hermit in the middle of Seattle--a [[pessimism|pessimist]] if I'm not careful, a [[feminist]], a [[Black (people)|Black]], a former [[Baptist]], an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive." [http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/85/184/index.html] She was a [[lesbian]]. [http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid26237.asp]

Revision as of 20:35, 2 March 2006

Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947-February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer, one of very few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards, and was the first science fiction writer ever to be a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant".

Butler signing a copy of Fledgling

Biography

Butler was born in Pasadena, California. Her father, a shoeshiner, died when she was young; her mother, also named Octavia, raised her in a struggling, racially mixed neighborhood, working as a maid to support the family. As a child, Octavia Jr., known as "Junie", was considered shy and a "daydreamer"; she was later diagnosed with dyslexia. She began writing at the age of 10 "to escape loneliness and boredom"; she was 12 when she began a lifelong interest in science fiction.[1] "I was writing my own little stories and when I was 12, I was watching a bad science fiction movie" called Devil Girl from Mars, she told the journal Black Scholar, and decided that I could write a better story than that. And I turned off the TV and proceeded to try, and I've been writing science fiction ever since."[2]

After getting an associate degree from Pasadena City College, she attended California State University and took extension classes at UCLA. Butler credited two workshops as giving her "the most valuable help I received with my writing" [3]: One was the Open Door Workshop of the Screen Writers' Guild of America, West, a program "designed to mentor Latino and African-American writers", which she took part in during 1969 and 1970. Through Open Door she met the noted science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who introduced her to the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, which she attended in 1970. [4]

Her first published story, "Crossover", appeared in Clarion's 1971 anthology; another short story, "Childfinder", was bought by Ellison for the never-published collection, The Last Dangerous Visions. (Like other stories purchased for that volume, it has yet to appear anywhere.) "I thought I was on my way as a writer," Butler wrote in her short fiction collection Bloodchild and Other Stories. "In fact, I had five more years of rejections slips and horrible little jobs ahead of me." In 1974, she started the novel Patternmaster--reportedly related to the story she started after watching Devil Girl From Mars--which became her first published book in 1976. Over the next eight years, she would publish four more novels in the same storyline, in what became known as the Patternist series.

In 1979, she published Kindred, which she described as not science fiction but rather aa a "grim fantasy", about an African-American woman who is repeatedly thrown from 1976 to the ante-bellum South, where she is forced to deal with life in a culture based on slavery. Kindred became the most popular of all her books, with a quarter of a million copies curently in print. "I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you," she said of the book. [5]

In 1984, Butler's "Speech Sounds" won the Hugo award for best short story. The following year, her novelette "Bloodchild" won the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best short story. In 1994, her novel Parable of the Sower was nominated for a Nebula for best novel, an award she finally took home in 2000 for Parable of the Talents. In October 2000, she received an award for lifetime achievement in writing from the PEN American Center.

Butler moved to Seattle in November 1999. She described herself as "comfortably asocial--a hermit in the middle of Seattle--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." [6] She was a lesbian. [7]

She died outside of her home on February 24, 2006, at the age of 58. Some news accounts have stated that she died of head injuries after falling and striking her head on her walkway,[8] while others report that she apparently suffered a stroke. [9]

Bibliography

Patternist series (In the Series Intended Order)

  • Wild Seed (1980) - Prequel to Mind of My Mind. Two immortals, one who changes bodies and another who has perfect control of her own, struggle to live together over generations, as one concentrates on creating a new race through his own breeding program. - James Tiptree, Jr. Award winner
  • Mind of My Mind (1977) - An immortal's breeding program has created a society of networked telepaths that he struggles to control.
  • Patternmaster (1976) - Far in the future, regular humans are dominated by a society of networked telepathic humans who, in turn, are ruled by the most powerful telepath: the Patternmaster. Also hostile to the remaining regular humans are Clayarks, mutant humans created long ago by disease unwittingly brought back to Earth from outer space by astronauts. The story revolves around the aging of the current Patternmaster, spawning a battle among telepaths to see who will become the next Patternmaster.
  • Clay's Ark (1984) - A colony of people mutated by a disease that astronauts have unwittingly brought back to Earth from outer space struggle to keep themselves isolated enough that the disease does not spread throughout all humanity. (Butler was reportedly unsatisfied with this novel.)

Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood series

  • Dawn (1987) - After the near-extinction of humanity, a woman is resurrected by the alien Oankali as part of a plan to colonize the earth with alien-human hybrids.
  • Adulthood Rites (1988) - An alien-human hybrid child is abducted by sterile human resisters.
  • Imago (1989) - An androgynous being comes of age and integrates human and alien societies.

The three volumes of this series are also collected into two omnibus editions, Xenogenesis (out of print) and Lilith's Brood.

Parable series

  • Parable of the Sower (1993) - A girl with heightened empathy develops a benign philosophical and religious system during her childhood in a walled suburb in a dystopian anarchic future Los Angeles. When the suburb's security is compromised, her home destroyed, and her family murdered, she travels north with some survivors to try to start a community where her religion can grow.
  • Parable of the Talents (1998) - As the U.S. continues to fall apart, the protagonist's community is attacked and taken over by a bloc of religious fanatics who inflict brutal atrocities like rape and murder. The novel contains a harsh indictment of fundamentalism and has been compared in that respect to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Parable of Talents won the Nebula Award for best novel in 2000.
  • Parable of the Trickster - Butler had originally planned to write a third Parable novel, tentatively titled Parable of the Trickster, which would have focused on the community's struggle to survive on a new planet. She began this novel after finishing Parable of the Talents, mentioning her work on it in a number of interviews, but at some point encountered a form of writer's block. She eventually shifted her creative attention, resulting in the novel Fledgling (see below).

Other

  • Kindred (1979) - Often shelved in Literature or African-American literature, rather than with science fiction. Story of a modern African-American woman who keeps falling back through time to rescue her white, slave-owning ancestor.
  • Survivor (1978) - With Earth being ravaged by the disease that was brought back from outer space, and telepaths now asserting control over what remains of humanity, regular humans are caught in the middle, and one group of them has decided to escape it all to a new planet, where they now, as aliens, must struggle to co-exist with the race that already lives there. Although this novel can be connected to the Patternist series, it is consider by others to be a stand alone novel. (Octavia Butler, herself, ultimately came to dislike this novel.)
  • Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995) - A collection whose title story, "Bloodchild" (1984), won the Hugo and Nebula awards. The collection also includes four other stories and two essays. The pieces span Butler's career, the first finished in 1971 and the last in 1993. In 2005, Seven Stories Press released a second edition of Bloodchild and Other Stories, expanded to include two newer short stories copyrighted by Butler in 2003.
  • Fledgling (2005) - A vampire novel. ISBN 1583226907
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