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. In many ways, this broke new ground in the science fiction world. Her medication for high blood pressure , along with her writing struggles, exacerbated symptoms of depression. 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. Those papers were first made available to scholars in 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. 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.
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Share Flipboard Email. Her father, who worked as a shoe shiner, died when she was seven and Butler was raised by her mother who worked as a maid and her grandmother. Butler remembered accompanying her mother to work at wealthy homes in Pasadena and having to enter through the back door. Her mother, who only had three years of formal schooling, worked incredibly hard to make sure Butler had more opportunities and a better education than she had.
Butler attended Pasadena public schools where, as a shy and frequently lonely student who struggled with dyslexia, she felt left behind. Her teachers interpreted her slower reading as an unwillingness to do the work rather than a sign of her struggles with dyslexia.
When she was given books to read in school, she found them boring and unrelatable, and she begged her mother for a library card. She immediately took me to the library and got me a card. From then on the library was my second home. She knew she wanted to write science fiction after seeing a B-Movie, Devil Girl from Mars , at age nine. Whenever she wrote stories for school, they were so unusual that many of her teachers assumed she had copied them from published works.
One teacher recognized her talents and encouraged the then year-old Butler to submit one of her stories to a science fiction magazine for publication. That submission was the first of many and solidified her desire to—and her belief that she could—become a professional writer. She took writing classes but also studied anthropology, psychology, physics, biology, and geology, among other subjects.
Adulthood Rites Add to Cart. Patternmaster Add to Cart. Parable of the Sower Add to Cart. Parable of the Talents Add to Cart. The Missing Relationship Add to Cart. Unexpected Stories Unavailable.
Seed to Harvest Add to Cart. Bloodchild and Other Stories Add to Cart. Fledgling Add to Cart. Kindred Add to Cart. Griots Beneath The Baobab Unavailable. This was not entirely true. I lived in Queens, in the opposite direction. Within minutes, Octavia was in my passenger seat, her friend in the back seat.
She told stories about growing up in Pasadena as we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge. I was too starstruck to say much so I never got a chance to tell her that I wanted to be a writer just like her or that we shared a birthday. That first Friday we were there was June 22, and my classmates threw Octavia and me a small birthday party.
Like Butler, I daydreamed often as a little girl. I had big questions about the world and the universe that were left unanswered by my family, my teachers, and even the books I read. Yet, when these stories featured children and teens, they were more accepted by my classmates. In the middle-grade and young adult genres, I can bend reality and have my characters question their worlds in big and small ways. Writing for children has allowed me to tap into my own imagination and allow enough room for young readers to come up with their own answers.
Octavia E. Butler had a boundless imagination as a child and even while others doubted her vision, she followed her dreams. With each book she wrote, she tried to answer the big questions about humanity and the universe.
She held on to her childlike wonder and made herself a career, a purpose, and a mission out of her imagination. Only in her many novels, short stories, and essays do these two worlds collide.
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