![]() In the mid-1980s, Butler began to receive critical recognition for her work. It was this passionate interest in the human experience that imbued her work with a certain depth and complexity. But for Butler, it largely served as a vehicle to address issues facing humanity. So I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure." Literary Awardsįor some writers, science fiction serves as means to delve into fantasy. ![]() "If my mother hadn't put up with all those humiliations, I wouldn't have eaten very well or lived very comfortably. "I didn't like seeing her go through back doors," she once said, according to The New York Times. In part, Butler drew some inspiration from her mother's work. The novel tells the story of an African American woman who travels back in time to save a white slave owner-her own ancestor. In 1979, Butler had a career breakthrough with Kindred. (Butler's publishing house would later group the works as the Patternist series, presenting them in a different reading order from when they were chronologically published.) The other related titles are Mind of My Mind (1977), Wild Seed (1980) and Clay's Ark (1984). This book would ultimately become part of an ongoing storyline about a group of people with telepathic powers called Patternists. In 1976, Butler published her first novel, Patternmaster. ![]() She was known to work for several hours very early in the morning each day. To make ends meet, Butler took all sorts of jobs while maintaining a strict writing schedule. Butler also studied her craft with Harlan Ellison at the Clarion Fiction Writers Workshop. She later earned an associate degree from Pasadena City College. Butler started creating her own stories early on, and she decided to make writing her life's work around the age of 10. She was dyslexic, but she didn't let this challenge deter her from developing a love of books. To support the family, her mother worked as a maid.Īs a child, Butler was known for her shyness and her impressive height. She lost her father at a young age and was raised by her mother. Butler thrived in a genre typically dominated by white males. Writer Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, on June 22, 1947, later breaking new ground as a woman and an African American in the realm of science fiction. She continued to write and publish until her death on February 24, 2006, in Seattle, Washington. Butler went on to write several other novels, including Kindred (1979) as well as Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), of the Parable series. Her first novel, Patternmaster (1976), would ultimately become one of the installments in the four-volume Patternist series. Her books blended elements of science fiction and African American spiritualism. Butler studied at several universities and began her writing career in the 1970s. ‘Butler writes with such a familiarity that the alien is welcome and intriguing.Octavia E. ‘An icon of the Afrofuturism world, envisioning literary realms that placed black characters front and center’ VANITY FAIR What it means to be human’ NEW YORK TIMES ![]() ‘Her evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, ‘Octavia Butler was a visionary’ VIOLA DAVIS ‘Butler’s prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision’ GUARDIAN ‘In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time… for sheer peculiar prescience, Butler’s novel may be unmatched’ NEW YORKER BUTLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR But salvation comes at a price – to restore humanity, it must be changed forever… Now they want Lilith to lead her people back home. Over centuries, the Oankali learned from the past, cured disease and healed the world. They spared those they could from the ruined Earth, and suspended them in a long, deep sleep. She finds herself living among the Oankali, a strange race who intervened in the fate of humanity hundreds of years before. When Lilith lyapo wakes in a small white room with no doors or windows, she remembers a devastating war, and a husband and child long lost to her. For readers of Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison and Ursula K. One woman is called upon to reconstruct humanity in this hopeful, thought-provoking novel by the bestselling, award-winning author. I think she can help each of us to do the same’ GLORIA STEINEM ‘Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans. ‘One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century’ JUNOT DIAZ
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