![]() ![]() I think it was the look and the memory of the indignities she endured. I remember saying to her a little later, at seven or eight, "I'll never do what you do, what you do is terrible." And she just got this sad look on her face and didn't say anything. I knew something was wrong, it was unpleasant, it was bad. I got to see her not hearing insults and going in back doors, and even though I was a little kid, I realized it was humiliating. But a lot of my reason for writing it came when I was in preschool, when my mother used to take me to work with her. She went on to discus her reasons for writing the book: As Butler explained in later interviews, the young man's remarks were a catalyst that led her to respond with a story providing historical context for the subservience, showing that it could be understood as silent but courageous survival. ![]() An African-American classmate involved in the Black Power Movement loudly criticized previous generations of African Americans for being subservient to whites. got the "germ of the idea" for what would become her novel Kindred. ĭuring her freshman year of night classes at Pasadena City College, she It sometimes reaches people who might not otherwise read that kind of book, who might not read a history, a historical novel even about that period unless it was a Gone With the Wind type. African American studies, women's studies and science fiction. When asked why the book is so popular, she said:īecause it's accessible to a number of audience. That book is Kindred, one of her most popular books, in which a young black woman goes back in time to save the life of one of her ancestors, who was a white slave owner. Of her many books, one in particular may be of interest to genealogists. 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. She loved science fiction, but early on was disappointed in that genre's "unimaginative portrayal of ethnicity and class as well as by its lack of noteworthy female protagonists." įor some writers, science fiction serves as means to delve into fantasy. Later in her life, she identified herself as a former Baptist. But my mother couldn't carry a child to term, for the most part something went wrong." ![]() Some of them didn't come to term, some of them did come to term and then died. She stated in interview, "I had four brothers who were born and died before I was born. She was her parents' first and only living child of five pregnancies her father died just a few years after her birth. She was born 22 June 1947 in Pasadena, California to Laurice and Octavia Margaret (Guy) Butler. Her works explore the nature of being human, through the lenses of race, community membership, and spirituality. The winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, she was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship - less formally known as the Genius Grant. Octavia Butler was an African American writer of science fiction. ![]()
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