![]() The book portrays a post-apocalyptic future in which small communities must band together in order to survive. ![]() One of Butler’s novels, The Parable of the Sower, hit the New York Times Bestseller list for the first time in 2020, fulfilling one of Butler’s life goals 14 years after her death. Her stories allowed her readers to visualize futures in which marginalized people are heroes, not victims. She was a pioneer of Afrofuturism, a genre that cast African-Americans as protagonists who embrace radical change in order to survive. Pioneering AfrofuturismĪs one of the first black women to gain recognition in the sci-fi genre, Butler explored ideas and themes that had been largely ignored until then: the potential consequences of environmental collapse due to climate change, corporate greed, the growing gap between the wealthy and poor, gender fluidity and the “othering” of marginalized groups, and criticism of the hierarchical nature of society, among others. Like a journalist, Butler had a love for cold, hard facts to imbue her stories with a sense of authenticity and concreteness: “The greater your ignorance the more verifiably accurate must be your facts,” she said. She traveled to the Amazon and Inca ruins in Peru to get a firsthand taste of biodiversity and civilizational collapse. She studied dozens of topics both in school and independently – anthropology, English, journalism, and speech. Anything that wasn’t too mentally taxing, allowing her to maintain a habit of waking before dawn each morning to write. Octavia took on a series of temporary or part-time jobs after graduating from high school: clerical, factory, warehouse, laundry, and food preparation gigs. There I could be anywhere but here, any time but now, with any people but these.”Īs the possibility of becoming a professional writer slowly dawned on her, Estelle began her transformation into “Octavia,” her powerful, assertive alter-ego. There I could be a magic horse, a Martian, a telepath. She said, “Until I began writing my own stories, I never found quite what I was looking for…In desperation, I made up my own.” She continues, “I made a universe in it. When Estelle was 12 years old, she watched the 1954 film Devil Girl From Mars, a sensationalist B-film that was so terrible it convinced her on the spot that she could write something better. She had no idea how to use it and spent years pecking away one finger at a time. She needs to learn self discipline.”Īt the age of 10, Estelle’s mother bought her a Remington typewriter to encourage her fledgling writing. Early signs of promise and perilĮstelle’s teachers at Garfield Elementary evaluated her earliest writing harshly, with comments like “Hyperbolic” and “You’re not even trying” scribbled in the margins.Ī teacher once questioned in the margins of one of her writing assignments, “…why include the science fiction touch? I think the story would be more universal if you kept to the human, earthly touch.” And reported to her mother that, “She has the understanding, but doesn’t apply it. It contains her journals, commonplace books, speeches, library call slips, essay and story drafts, school notes, calendars, and datebooks as well as assorted odds and ends like school progress reports, bus passes, yearbooks, and contracts.Ī new book by Lynell George, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia Butler (from which all the quotations in this article are drawn), tells the story of how Estelle’s notes played a crucial part in her journey. There are clues in the Octavia Butler Archives, a collection of 9,062 items filling 386 boxes that was donated to the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA after Butler’s death. How could an intensely shy little girl become a world-renowned, award-winning writer? How could an impoverished and overworked young woman emerge as a powerful prophet of the future? Her shyness combined with slight dyslexia made schoolwork difficult as well.Įstelle’s answer was to turn inward – to her own imagination – and outward, to the Pasadena Central Library, where she would spend countless hours reading fairy tales and horse stories, and later, the fantasy and science-fiction novels that would inspire her to become a writer.ĭespite so much stacked against her, this young woman would eventually become one of the most successful and influential science-fiction writers of her generation, winning multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and in 1995 becoming the first sci-fi writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship (known as the “Genius Grant”). Painfully shy and introverted from a young age, Estelle became an easy target for bullying at school. Known in her early years as “Estelle,” she was raised by a single, widowed mother who worked domestic jobs to make ends meet. Octavia Estelle Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, CA.
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