Octavia E. Butler was a world renowned African-American science fiction novelist and the first African-American woman to gain popularity and critical acclaim as a major science fiction writer. Her novels include Patternmaster, Kindred, Dawn and Parable of the Sower.
Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, California. Her father died at an early age, and she was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother. Butler’s mother worked as a maid, and would occasionally take her to work when she had no one to watch her. Butler experienced white supremacy first hand when seeing her mother being forced to go into the house through the back door, being talked about as if she didn’t exist and generally being treated as less than a person. Butler’s mother would occasionally bring home books that the white children no longer wanted for her to read.
Butler was a shy child, and this, coupled with a mild dyslexia made school difficult for her. She found solace in books, spending a lot of her free time reading at the Pasadena Public Library or writing in a big, pink notebook. Butler began reading fairy tales and horse stories, but then diversified her interests and developed a passion for science fiction magazines and stories. At the age of 12, Butler watched Devil Girl From Mars and decided she could write a better story. She began writing a story which would later become the basis for her first published novel. A year later, her aunt Hazel said to her “Honey…Negroes can’t be writers” bringing home the discrimination that a black female writer would have to overcome. Butler persevered, and after graduating from John Muir High School in 1965 she continued her education at Pasadena City College. She would study at night while working during the day. As a freshman, she won a college-wide short story contest and during her time at the college she began thinking about the plot of her best-selling novel, Kindred, when a young African-American classmate who was part of the Black Power Movement criticised previous generations for being subservient to whites. She graduated in 1968 with an associate of arts degree with a focus in History.
Butler worked a variety of jobs to support herself while pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. She would set herself a strict writing schedule and attended first California State University, Los Angeles and then later switched to writing courses through UCLA Extension. Butler attended the Open Door Program at the Screen Writers’ Guild, where she met the esteemed science fiction writer Harlan Ellison who was teaching a class. Ellison encouraged her, and published one of her stories entitled ‘Child Finder’ in his anthology, The Last Dangerous Visions. He also suggested that she attend the six-week Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, where she met Samuel R. Delany who would become a friend. Robin Scott Wilson, the director of Clarion published her story “Crossover” in the 1971 Clarion anthology.
Butler continued to work a variety of jobs while working on a series of novels beginning with Patternmaster (1976) and followed by Mind of My Mind (1977), and Survivor (1978). The books had come against some resistance despite selling well, as her publisher felt that it was risky for her to write for both African-American and female audiences, groups that had notoriously stayed away from the genre. In 1978, Butler was finally able to focus on writing full time and used this opportunity to work on Kindred, a novel that she’d been thinking of since she was at Pasadena City College. Kindred was published a year later, and features a young African-American women who travels back in time to save a white slave owner, who is her own ancestor. Butler wanted to explain why her ancestors had to seem subservient to white people as it was necessary for them to be silent so that they could survive. Butler drew on her experiences of watching her mother being forced to go through back doors, knowing that if she had tried to rebel she wouldn’t have been able to support her family. She wanted to explain the historical context and to detail the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure. Kindred was Butler’s breakthrough novel and is regularly chosen as a text for community-wide reading programs and book organisations, as well as being a common choice for high school and college courses.
In 1980, Butler published Wild Seed, returning to what had become the Patternist series. She followed this with Clay’s Ark in 1984. That same year, she won the Best Short Story Hugo Award for “Speech Sounds” and a Nebula Award for her novelette “Bloodchild”, a year later it won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Novelette. In the late 1980’s Butler published Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989) making up her Xenogenesis trilogy. The books explore genetics and race, and tells the story of humans reproducing with aliens to ensure that both survive. Butler continued to write during the 1990’s, publishing Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998).
In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship. The award came with a grant of $250,000 and Butler stating that she would continue to write new and genre breaking science fiction to appeal to a much wider range of readers than are typically targeted within the genre, especially those readers in the African-American community. Butler’s early work was compiled into a book entitled “Bloodchild: And Other Stories” published in 1995. The compilation included insights written by Butler, including an afterword for each short story and two personal essays that talk about her habit of writing and overcoming personal challenges, like racism and poverty to achieve success. The compilation was an excellent example of both what motivated her and her talent.
In 1999, Butler moved to Seattle, Washington following the death of her mother. That same year, Parable of the Talents won the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Nebula Award for Best Science Novel. Butler intended to write four more Parable novels, but as a perfectionist she was finding it difficult to write anything she was satisfied with. Butler was also overwhelmed and depressed by the research she was undertaking to write the novels, and decided that a chance of pace was necessary to get back to writing. She wrote what would be her last book, Fledgling (2005) which dealt with vampires and family structures, a theme that featured in many of her works. A year later, Butler died at her home in Seattle. Butler was a self-proclaimed feminist and a writer of “stories that blurred the lines of distinction between reality and fantasy.” (as written by Gregory Hampton in Callaloo). She pioneered the use of science fiction to explore the human condition, especially when it came to race and gender issues. Following her death, the Carl Brandon Society established the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship in her name to provided support to students of colour to attend the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop.