We're trying out a new feature at the LibraryRunner newsletter: author spotlights! Let's get to know the acclaimed writer Octavia Butler:
Octavia Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother worked as a domestic cleaner, who was not always treated well by her employers. Theirs was a varied neighborhood and despite unofficial segregation, Butler was able to see a variety of people and experiences. She wrote stories from the age of ten, and turned towards SF at twelve:
The movie that got me writing science fiction was "Devil Girl from Mars." That was just one of the old sub-genre of science fiction movies that talked about how the people of some other world have used up all men. I watched it as a kid, and it seemed a silly movie to me, so I turned it off and I began writing. My idea was, gee, I can write a better story than that. And since the story that I had seen was supposed to be science fiction, I began writing science fiction as I thought of it then, even though I didn't know much in the way of science.
As she learned more science, she became fascinated with its possibilities. Butler's mother wanted her to pursue security though being a secretary, but instead the young writer survived on a series of odd jobs that allowed her to dedicate as much time as possible to writing. She attended Pasadena City College at night, and saw Black Power politics in action, which also informed her writing.
When I got into college, Pasadena City College, the black nationalist movement, the Black Power Movement, was really underway with the young people, and I heard some remarks from a young man who was the same age I was but who had apparently never made the connection with what his parents did to keep him alive. He was still blaming them for their humility and their acceptance of disgusting behavior on the part of employers and other people. He said, "I'd like to kill all these old people who have been holding us back for so long. But I can't because I'd have to start with my own parents." When he said us he meant black people, and when he said old people he meant older black people. That was actually the germ of the idea for Kindred (1979). I've carried that comment with me for thirty years. He felt so strongly ashamed of what the older generation had to do, without really putting it into the context of being necessary for not only their lives but his as well. I wanted to take a character, when I did Kindred, back in time to some of the things that our ancestors had to go through, and see if that character survived so very well with the knowledge of the present in her head.
During her writing career of about 30 years before an untimely death at just 58, Butler became known as a leader and shaper of Afrofuturisism. She disliked being categorized as an SF writer, since she routinely defied the traditional boundaries of that genre and attracted wide audiences. She claimed three in particular: black readers, science-fiction fans, and feminists Butler won two Hugos and two Nebulas, among many other honors and awards, and was the first SF writer to be given a MacArthur grant.
We have several of Butler's works available at the library (my own favorite is the Lilith's Brood trilogy). Come on in and grab one for an exciting reading experience!
When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler 3rd Floor ; PS3552.U827 A6 2020
The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now. Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. After this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to the plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father the daughter who will become Dana's ancestor. Yet each time Dana's sojourns become longer and more dangerous, until it is uncertain whether or not her life will end, long before it has even begun.
Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago by Octavia E. Butler 3rd Floor ; PS3552.U827 L55 2000
Lilith's Brood is a profoundly evocative, sensual -- and disturbing -- epic of human transformation. Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected -- by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children. This is their story...
Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories by Octavia Butler 3rd Floor ; PS3552.U827 A6 2020
The definitive edition of the complete works of the "grand dame" of American science fiction begins with this volume gathering two novels and her collected stories An original and eerily prophetic writer, Octavia E. Butler used the conventions of science fiction to explore the dangerous legacy of racism in America in harrowingly personal terms. She broke new ground with books that featured complex Black female protagonists--"I wrote myself in," she would later recall--establishing herself as one of the pioneers of the Afrofuturist aesthetic.
Parable of the Sower by 3rd Floor ; PS3552.U827 P37 2000
Kindred by 
Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago by 
Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories by