Butler’s father died when she was very young; her mother raised her in Pasadena, California. Shy, tall, and dyslexic, Butler immersed herself in reading whatever books she could find. She began writing at twelve, when a B movie called Devil Girl from Mars inspired her to try writing a better science-fiction story.
She took writing classes throughout college, attending the Clarion Writers Workshop and, in 1969, the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwriters’ Guild of America, a program designed to mentor Latino and African American writers. There she met renowned science fiction author Harlan Ellison, who adopted Butler as his protégé.
In 1974 she began writing Patternmaster (1976), set in a future world where a network of all-powerful telepaths dominate humanity. Praised both for its imaginative vision and for Butler’s powerful prose, the novel spawned four prequels, beginning with Mind of My Mind (1977) and finishing with Clay’s Ark (1984).
Although the Patternist series established Butler among the science fiction elite, Kindred (1979) brought her mainstream success. In that novel, a young black woman travels back in time to the antebellum South, where she is called on to protect the life of a white, slaveholding ancestor. Kindred’s protagonist stood out in a genre that, at the time, was widely dominated by white men.
In 1985, Butler won Nebula and Hugo awards for the novella Bloodchild, which was reprinted in 1995 as Bloodchild and Other Stories. Dawn (1987) began the Xenogenesis trilogy, about a race of aliens who visit earth to save humanity from itself. Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989) continue the story, following the life of the first child born with a mixture of alien and human DNA.
Fledgling (2005), which combines vampire and science fiction narratives, was Butler’s final novel. “She wasn't writing romance or feel-good novels,” mystery author Walter Mosley said. “She was writing very difficult, brilliant work.” Her books have been translated into several languages, and continue to appear widely in school and college literature curricula.
Butler died at home in Washington in 2006.
Butler, age three, sits with her mother for a photo in Los Angeles in 1951.
Butler at age thirteen. She began writing the year before when a science fiction film—the cult favorite Devil Girl from Mars—inspired her to create something of her own.
Butler’s 1965 senior class photo from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California.
Butler reading a book in 1975, the year before she published Patternmaster.
Butler on a book tour for Parable of the Sower in New York City in 1993.
Butler addresses the audience at Marygrove College, Detroit, during the Contemporary American Author Lecture Series in 1994.
Butler won both Nebula and Hugo awards for her contributions to the science fiction genre. (Photo courtesy of Anna Fedor.)
Butler with authors Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez (standing), Samuel R. Delany, and Steven Barnes (sitting) at Clark Atlanta University’s conference for African American science fiction writers—the first of its kind—in 1997.
When Butler passed away in 2006, the New York Times eulogized her as a world-renowned author whose science fiction explored “far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1984 by Octavia E. Butler
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
978-1-4532-6360-0
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Clay's Ark Page 20
