Sunday Spotlight: Octavia E. Butler

        Before black history month is over with, I thought I would focus on one of the greatest African American writers: Octavia Butler! 

  In a niche market dominated until recently by white men, Octavia Estelle Butler (1947 – 2006) was a wonderfully refreshing trailblazer. Born the dyslexic daughter of a housemaid and a shoeshine man who died young, Butler was one of the few black children of her era to discover the delights of science fiction at an early age through the pulps. At the age of twelve, she found herself watching the B movie, Devil Girl From Mars (1957), on television, and thought to herself, “I can write a better story than that!” So she turned off the television and set to work at it. “I’ve been writing science fiction ever since,” she later said.

  She graduated with an associate’s degree from Pasadena City College in 1968, and then went on to study at California State, Los Angeles. She later left Cal State, but continued to take writing classes through the UCLA extension program. But then she discovered two writing workshops that would forever change her life. One was the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwriters’ Guild of America. It was through this that she met Harlan Ellison. Ellison introduced her to the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, and there she met Samuel R. Delany. The fact that an African American like herself could write great science fiction was a great inspiration for her.

  In 1971 she had her first short fiction sale with Crossover, a story which appeared in Clarion’s 1971 anthology. Harlan Ellison then bought her story, Childfinder (1971), for his book, The Last Dangerous Visions (which unfortunately has yet to ever be published). Butler thought she might have herself a career. But unfortunately, she would go through five long years where she didn’t sell another thing.

  Finally, she sold her first novel, Patternmaster (1976), which allegedly grew out of the story project she’d started after watching Devil Girl From Mars. It dealt with heady moral issues such as eugenics, but resolves them open-endedly. It became a series when she wrote a sequel, Mind of My Mind (1977). She completed the series with Survivor (1978), Wild Seed (1980), and Clay’s Ark (1984). Today, Wild Seed is often sold as book one of this series, as it takes place first in the chronology of the stories.

  In 1979 she would write her most popular and highest-selling book, Kindred. Because it involves time travel through a kind of magic, it doesn’t really qualify as science fiction. Yet it is a powerful story. Edana Franklin, of 1976 Pasadena, is pulled back in time at the summons of Rufus Weylin, a white slave owner’s son, and her ancestor by one of his family’s slave-women, named Alice. Every time she is pulled back, she must save Rufus from some kind of danger, but must also deal with the realities of being a black woman in a slavery culture. The book is often talked about, discussed, assigned as part of college curriculum, and hailed as outstanding modern literature.

  By 1984, she began racking up awards. She won her first Hugo for her short story, Speech Sounds (1983). Then, with her novelette, Bloodchild (1984), she won the Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Award! It was fair to say that she had arrived, at least as a name. It would be some time, however, before she could truly say she had risen above poverty.

  She began her next series, the Xenogenesis trilogy (or, Lilith’s Brood, as it was later called), with Dawn (1987). Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989) soon followed. But it was the series she began after that which again garnered her attention from the awards-givers in the sci-fi community. Parable of the Sower (1993), the first of the two-volume Parable series was nominated for a Nebula award. It’s sequel, Parable of the Talents (1998), would win the Nebula outright. And for good reason! In the Parable series, she discusses a new religion called Earthseed, and the dystopia of the second novel features a horribly racist president elected in the 2030’s named Andrew Jarret, who promised to “Make America great again!” Of course, he intended to do so on a hyper-Christian and ultra-racist agenda. After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Octavia Butler’s depiction of Jarret was eerily prophetic!

  In between her Parable novels, she was awarded the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. Nearly $300,000.00 was given to her to continue her creative talents. Finally, after years of financial struggles, she was well off. “People may call these ‘genius grants,’” she told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in an interview afterward, “but nobody made me take an I.Q. test before I got mine. I knew I’m no genius.” To this day, she remains the only science fiction author to ever receive this grant. She continued to write, and to rack up a few more awards. In 2000, she was given the PEN award for Lifetime Achievement. And in 2005, she would publish what would turn out to be her last book, Fledgling. 

  In 2006, Octavia Butler suffered a stroke just outside her home near Seattle. She fell, and her head hit the walkway. She was taken to Northwest hospital, but died shortly thereafter. Whether it was the fall or the stroke that ultimately did her in is a matter of debate, but what wasn’t debatable was that one of the greatest lights of literature had been snuffed out. She was only 58.

  I personally once ranked Octavia Butler merely as a New Wave Titan, and not one of the "New Wave Nine" (a list which also includes Piers Anthony, Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, and Kurt Vonnegut). But after the prophetic depiction of a Donald-Trump-like character in the form of Andrew Jarret, it was clear that her writing abilities ranked far higher than I’d given her credit for. Also, her star continues to rise, rise, rise as the years go by, and more people discover her fantastic work. Prophecy is the truest measure of a science fiction writer’s prowess, and as I began to explore her other writings, I began to see why so many English Lit. majors were required to read her works in college. This woman could write! If she’d had another decade to write even more, she would undoubtedly have risen to the rank of demigod like Ray Bradbury before her. Unfortunately, her tragic death cut that path short.

  Butler is the sort of writer who explores deep, controversial issues, yet leaves the reader to sort out what he or she might feel about them. Her science fiction is laced with themes of sexual ambiguity and religious tension, and when you’re done reading one of her novels, you feel as though your world has expanded. In 2010, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Eric

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