Biography of Octavia E. Butler, American Science Fiction Author

Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an Black American science fiction author. Over the course of her career, she won several major industry awards, including a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, and she was the first science fiction author to receive a MacArthur “genius” fellowship.

Early Life

Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, in 1947. She was the first and only child of Octavia Margaret Guy, who was a housemaid, and Laurice James Butler, who worked as a shoeshine man. When Butler was only 7 years old, her father died. For the rest of her childhood, she was raised by her mother and her maternal grandmother, both of whom were strict Baptists. At times, she accompanied her mother to her clients’ homes, where her mother was often treated poorly by her White employers.

Outside of her family life, Butler struggled. She had to deal with mild dyslexia, as well as having an intensely shy personality. As a result, she struggled to form friendships and was often the target of bullies. She spent the bulk of her time at the local library, reading and, eventually, writing. She found a passion for fairy tales and science fiction magazines, begging her mother for a typewriter so she could write her own stories. Her frustration at a TV movie resulted in her drafting a “better” story (that would eventually turn into successful novels).

Although Butler was passionate about her creative pursuits, she was soon introduced to the prejudices of the time, which would not have been kind towards a Black woman writing. Even her own family had doubts. Butler persisted, however, submitting short stories for publication as early as age 13. She graduated from high school in 1965 and began studying at Pasadena City College. In 1968, she graduated with an associate degree in history. Despite her mother’s hopes that she would find full-time work as a secretary, Butler instead took part-time and temporary jobs with more flexible schedules so that she would have time to continue writing.

Continuing Education in Workshops

While in college, Butler continued working on her writing, even though it wasn’t the focus of her studies. She won her first short story contest during her first year of college, which also provided her with her first payment for writing. Her time in college also influenced her later writing, as she was exposed to classmates involved with the Black Power Movement who criticized previous generations of Black Americans for accepting a subservient role.

Although she worked jobs that allowed her time to write, Butler was unable to find breakthrough success. Eventually, she enrolled in classes at California State University, but soon transferred into a writing extension program through UCLA. This would be the start of her continuing education as a writer, which led her to greater skill and greater success.

Butler attended the Open Door Workshop, a program held by the Writers Guild of America to facilitate the development of minority writers. One of her teachers there was Harlan Ellison, a science fiction writer who had written one of the most famous Star Trek episodes, as well as several pieces of New Age and science fiction writing. Ellison was impressed with Butler’s work and encouraged her to attend a six-week science fiction workshop held in Clarion, Pennsylvania. The Clarion workshop proved to be a breakthrough moment for Butler. Not only did she meet lifelong friends such as Samuel R. Delany, but she produced some of her first work to be published.

First Series of Novels (1971-1984)

In 1971, Butler’s first published work came in the year’s Clarion Workshop anthology; she contributed the short story “Crossover.” She also sold another short story, “Childfinder,” to Ellison for his anthology The Last Dangerous Visions. Even so, success was not rapid for her; the next few years were filled with more rejections and little success. Her real breakthrough wouldn’t come for another five years.

Butler had begun writing a series of novels in 1974, but the first one was not published until 1976. These came to be known as the Patternist series, a sci-fi series depicting a future where humanity is separated into three genetic groupings: Patternists, who have telepathic abilities, Clayarks, who have mutated with animalistic superpowers, and Mutes, ordinary humans bonded to and dependent on the Patternists. The first novel, Pattermaster, was published in 1976 (although it later became the “last” novel to take place within the fictional universe). It dealt, allegorically, with ideas of race and gender in society and social class.

Four more novels in the series followed: 1977’s Mind of My Mind and 1978’s Survivor, then Wild Seed, which explained the world’s origins, in 1980, and finally Clay’s Ark in 1984. Although much of her writing at this time was focused on her novels, she made time for a short story, “Speech Sounds.” The tale of a post-apocalyptic world where humans have lost the ability to read, write, and speak won Butler the 1984 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Although the Patternist series dominated this early era of Butler’s work, that would not actually be her best-received work. In 1979, she published Kindred, which went on to become her best-selling work. The story revolves around a Black woman from 1970s Los Angeles who is somehow cast back in time to 19th-century Maryland, where she discovers her ancestors: a free Black woman forced into enslavement and a White enslaver.

A New Trilogy (1984-1992)

Before starting a new series of books, Butler again returned to her roots with a short story. “Bloodchild,” published in 1984, depicts a world where humans are refugees who are both protected and used as hosts by aliens. The eerie story was one of Butler’s most critically acclaimed, winning Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, as well as the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award.

Following this, Butler started a new series, which eventually came to be known as the Xenogenesis trilogy or the Lilith’s Blood trilogy. Like many of her other works, the trilogy explored a world filled with genetic hybrids, born of a human nuclear apocalypse and the alien race that rescues some survivors. The first novel, Dawn, was published in 1987, with a Black human woman, Lilith, surviving the apocalypse and finding herself at the center of a dispute over whether or not humans ought to interbreed with their alien rescuers as they attempt to rebuild Earth 250 years after the destruction.

Two more novels completed the trilogy: 1988’s Adulthood Rites focuses on Lilith’s hybrid son, while the trilogy’s final installment, Imago, continues exploring the themes of genetic hybridity and warring factions. All three novels in the trilogy were nominated for the Locus Award, although none won. Critical reception was somewhat divided. While some praised the novels for leaning more into “hard” science fiction than Butler’s previous work and for extending the metaphor of their Black, female protagonist, others found the quality of the writing declined over the course of the series.

Later Novels and Short Stories (1993-2005)

Butler took a few years off from publishing new work between 1990 and 1993. Then, in 1993, she published Parable of the Sower, a new novel set in a near-future California. The novel introduces further explorations of religion, as its teenage protagonist struggles against the religion in her small town and forms a new belief system based on the idea of life on other planets. Its sequel, Parable of the Talents (published in 1998), narrates a later generation of the same fictional world, in which right-wing fundamentalists have taken over. The novel won the Nebula Award for Best Science Novel. Butler did have plans for four more novels in this series, starting with Parable of the Trickster. However, as she tried to work on them, she became overwhelmed and emotionally drained. As a result, she set the series aside and turned to work that she deemed a little lighter in tone.

In between these two novels (alternately referred to as the Parable novels or the Earthseed novels), Butler also published a collection of short stories titled Bloodchild and Other Stories in 1995. The collection includes several pieces of short fiction: her early short story "Bloodchild", which had won Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, "The Evening and the Morning and the Night", "Near of Kin", “Crossover,” and her Hugo-Award winning story "Speech Sounds.” Also included in the collection were two non-fiction pieces: "Positive Obsession" and "Furor Scribendi.”

It would be a full five years after Parable of the Talents before Butler would publish anything again. In 2003, she published two new short stories: “Amnesty” and “The Book of Martha.” “Amnesty” deals with Butler’s familiar territory of complicated relationships between aliens and humans. In contrast, “The Book of Martha” is solely focused on humanity, telling the story of a novelist who asks God to give humankind vivid dreams, but whose career suffers as a result. In 2005, Butler published her final novel, Fledgling, about a world where vampires and humans live in a symbiotic relationship and produce hybrid beings.

Literary Style and Themes

Butler’s work widely critiques the modern-day human social model of hierarchies. This tendency, which Butler herself considered one of the biggest flaws of human nature and which leads to bigotry and prejudice, underlies a large proportion of her fiction. Her stories often depict societies in which a strict—and often interspecies—hierarchy is defied by a strong, individual protagonist, underlying a strong idea that diversity and progress might be the “solution” to this problem of the world.

Although her stories often start out with a singular protagonist, the theme of community is at the heart of much of Butler’s work. Her novels often feature newly built communities, often formed by those who are rejected by the status quo. These communities tend to transcend race, gender, sexuality, and even species. This theme of inclusive community ties into another running theme in her work: the idea of hybridity or genetic modification. Many of her fictional worlds involve hybrid species, tying together ideas of social flaws with biology and genetics.

For the most part, Butler writes in a “hard” science fiction style, incorporating different scientific concepts and fields (biology, genetics, technological advances), but with a distinctive social and historical awareness. Her protagonists are not just individuals, but minorities of some kind, and their successes hinge on their abilities to change and adapt, which usually puts them in contrast with the world at large. Thematically, these choices serve to underline an important tenet of Butler’s oeuvre: that even (and especially) those who are marginalized can, through both strength and through love or understanding, effect massive change. In many ways, this broke new ground in the science fiction world.

Death

Butler’s later years were plagued with health issues, including high blood pressure, as well as frustrating writer’s block. Her medication for high blood pressure, along with her writing struggles, exacerbated symptoms of depression. She did, however, continue teaching at Clarion's Science Fiction Writers' Workshop and, in 2005, she was inducted into the International Black Writers’ Hall of Fame at Chicago State University.

On February 24, 2006, Butler died outside her home in Lake Forest Park, Washington. At the time, news reports were inconsistent regarding the cause of her death: some reported it as a stroke, others as a fatal blow to the head after falling on the pavement. The generally accepted answer is that she suffered a fatal stroke. She left all of her papers to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Those papers were first made available to scholars in 2010.

Legacy

Butler continues to be a widely-read and admired author. Her particular brand of imagination helped to usher in a fresh new take on science fiction—the idea that the genre can and should welcome diverse perspective and characters, and that those experiences can enrich the genre and add new layers. In many ways, her novels depict historical prejudices and hierarchies, then explore and critique them through the futuristic, science fiction mold.

Butler’s legacy also lives on in the many students she worked with during her time as a teacher at the Clarion's Science Fiction Writers' Workshop. In fact, there is currently a memorial scholarship in Butler’s name for writers of color to attend the workshop, as well as a scholarship in her name at Pasadena City College. Her writing was, at times, a conscious effort to fill in some of the gaps of gender and race that were (and still are) present in the genre. Today, that torch is carried by several authors who are continuing the work of expanding imagination.

Sources

• "Butler, Octavia 1947–2006", in Jelena O. Krstovic (ed.), Black Literature Criticism: Classic and Emerging Authors since 1950, 2nd edn. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2008. 244–258.
• Pfeiffer, John R. "Butler, Octavia Estelle (b. 1947)." in Richard Bleiler (ed.), Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, 2nd edn. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999. 147–158.
• Zaki, Hoda M. "Utopia, Dystopia, and Ideology in the Science Fiction of Octavia Butler". Science-Fiction Studies 17.2 (1990): 239–51.