Angie Ruffin
ENGL 5360
Dr. S. Deena
Author Project
July 13, 2002
OCTAVIA ESTELLE BUTLER
Octavia Estelle Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California on June 22, 1947. She is a science-fiction writer. Her mother, Laurice and her grandmother raised her. Her father, Guy, died when Octavia was very young. Because her mother had difficulty carrying pregnancies to full term, she has no brothers or sisters. The neighborhood where she grew up was racially mixed, but all the families, white and black, were poor.
As a child, Butler had difficulty concentrating in school because of her shyness and tendency to daydream. She was also dyslexic. It was while she was young that she became interested in science fiction.
After high school she attended Pasadena City College, then went on to further her education at California State University and then the University of California, Los Angeles.
Even though she is educated, she credits most of her success to nonacademic programs like the Open Door Program of the Screen Writers Guild of America. Another such program is the Clarion Science Fiction Workshop.
Her writing has been described as a unique combination of science fiction, mysticism, mythology, and African-American Spiritualism. Her works have been generally well received by critics.
Butler is fascinated by disease and so it is a recurring theme within her writing. She sometimes invents diseases. For instance, in her short story, “Speech Sounds”, all of the characters are stricken with a disease by which they lose various social attributes. However, everyone loses a different ability. Some characters cannot recognize speech; some can no longer speak. In another of her stories, she explores the possibility of men getting pregnant. As research for her writing, she spends much time studying developments in biology and genetics.
Butler has won many literary awards for her writing. Among these are several Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. These two awards are considered the highest honors in the science fiction genre. In 1995, she was awarded a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. The grant was worth $295,000 over a period of five years. The MacArthur Fellowship is rewards creative people who push boundaries in their fields.
Selected Works
- Kindred
- Earthseed
- Parable of the Sower
- Parable of the Talent
- Xenogenesis Series (Lilith’s Brood)
- Dawn
- Adulthood Rights
- Imago
- Patternist Series
- Wild Seed
- Clay’s Ark
- Survivor
- Patternmaster
- Bloodchild and other stories
Awards
1984 – Hugo Award (Speech Sounds)
1984 – Nebula Award (Bloodchild)
1985 – Hugo Award (Bloodchild)
1985 – Locus Award (Bloodchild)