![]() The history behind the fantasy of Kindred revolves around the lives of people, either real or realistically imagined, in the early years of the nineteenth century. “I have a feeling that if I wrote a biography about my mother, it would wind up in the science fiction section.” As she joked in an interview with Stephen Harper. “I mean, if I was told that something was science fiction, I would expect to find something dealing with science in it.” Yet, not surprisingly, the book gets shelved with her other books in stores. The plot features an African American woman and her white husband who somehow travel through time between the 1970s and the early 1800s, but “there's no science in Kindred,” she pointed out in a conversation with the novelist Randall Kenan. The irony is that the most popular novel by one of America’s most famous and influential science fiction writers isn’t science fiction at all but is instead a historical fantasy. Parable of the Sower sold an astonishing 200,000 print copies in various editions during the past two decades (over half of them in the last two years), but it is still outpaced by her best-known novel, Kindred (1979), which sold well over half a million copies through retailers during the same period. All I have to say to that is ‘I certainly hope not.’” Abby Aguirre, describing in The New Yorker how the novel and its sequel ( Parable of the Talents) eerily foretold aspects of current events, writes that Butler “extrapolated her vision of a near-future dystopia from what she read in the news, forecasting what kind of collapse might result if the forces of late-stage capitalism, climate change, mass incarceration, big pharma, gun violence, and the tech industry continued unhampered.” At a 1998 conference, Butler addressed early questions about the book’s canny prescience: “This was a cautionary tale, although people have told me it was prophecy. ![]() This past September, however, her novel Parable of the Sower, first published in 1993, finally made it to the New York Times Best Sellers lists. So be it! I will find the way to do this.īutler, who died in February 2006 at the age of 58 following a fall outside her Seattle home, never realized this ambition. ![]() My novels each travel up to the top of the bestseller lists and they reach the top and they stay on top for months. My novels go onto the bestseller lists on or shortly after publication. ![]() After Imago, each of my books will be on the bestseller lists of LAT, NYT, PW, WP, etc.* My novels will go onto the above lists whether publishers push them hard or not, whether I’m paid a high advance or not, whether I ever win another award or not. Butler’s papers and manuscripts is a commonplace book in which she wrote notes to herself, including self-motivational goals and advice like: Image courtesy of Laurence Schwinger’s website.Īmong the items in the archive of Octavia E. Click on image to see entire front cover. 1941) for the first edition of Octavia E. Jacket art by American artist Laurence Schwinger (b. “ Try and Change the Past,” Fritz Leiber.She has been cited as a godmother of Afrofuturism, and Hilton Als has identified Butler as the " dominant artistic force" throughout Beyonce's visual album Lemonade. Most recently, it has been announced that Ava Duverney will adapt Dawn, one of Butler's Xenogenesis books, for television. If you're interested in diving into the work of Octavia Butler, we've got a guide to getting started with this remarkable writer.“ Octavia Butler: The Brutalities of the Past Are All Around This” (Gabrielle Bellot, LitHub)įor teachers and students: “ Behold Octavia Butler’s Motivational Notes to Self” ( OpenCulture) The first science fiction writer to ever receive the MacArthur Fellowship, Butler transcended the conventions of her chosen genre, exploring issues of empathy, social normativity, self-destruction, conservation, and tribalism. One of the few women of color publishing in a genre dominated by white men, Butler won the coveted Hugo Award and Nebula Prize twice each for her novella "Bloodchild," her short story "Speech Sounds," and her novel Parable of the Talents, respectively. However, Butler's legacy moves beyond prizes alone. Born on June 22, 1947, Octavia Butler was a groundbreaking writer in American letters.
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