Octavia E. Butler

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.

To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

-Excerpt from Parable of the Talents

The above quote is the most eloquent and brilliant thing that I have ever heard. This was written by this week’s highlighted American science fiction writer, Octavia E. Butler. And the quote sounds even more impactful when Butler is reading it aloud. Butler’s brilliance did not go unnoticed during her career. She won two Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, the James Tiptree Award, the Locus Award, the Pen Lifetime Achievement Award and the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (known as the genius award, which you have to be nominated by your peers to even be considered). And Butler was the first science fiction writer to win the MacArthur Fellowship.

Octavia Butler was born on June 22, 1947 and was a California native. Unfortunately, and tragically, Butler died due to a fall in her home in 2006. She was only 58 years old. We lost an important figure of American literature that year because Butler was known for creatively, and effectively, bringing racism and sexism into her futuristic and dystopian stories. She crafted book after book of stories centered on African American women, slavery, power, discrimination and politics in her books. Butler brought an element to science fiction that was non-existent before her science career; what it meant to be black, a woman, and even human. Her childhood had well-prepared her for the insight and life experience that Butler needed in order to vividly portray the lives of her fictional characters.

Growing up in the 50s and early 60s, Butler watched her mom live a subservient life as she worked for a white family in order to support Octavia and herself. Butler’s father had died when she was a little girl. She loved to read and Butler’s mother would bring her books that were given to her by the family she worked for. Butler loved reading, despite the fact that she was dyslexic. She gravitated toward the science fiction genre and loved it because she could imagine anything; including adding in black lead characters. Butler noted that science fiction was a white and male dominated genre. The fact that she was never white, nor male, didn’t stop Butler from writing some of the most spiritual, mystical and existential science fiction stories.

I was actually just recently introduced to Butler’s work, having never heard of her before. I had never read any of her books in school nor did I know anyone who read her books. But in a class taught by a professor from Africa, I’ve been exposed to many great people in America, and the world, whom I wouldn’t have known existed if that professor hadn’t exposed me to them. I really enjoy Butler’s writing because she writes about things that scare her, and then tries to understand what she fears through storytelling. This is a very unique way to conquer fear. I read one of Butler’s short stories that explored a concept that made Butler uncomfortable, male pregnancy. Bloodchild is a story about a teenage boy who is coming of age and must make a decision that will shape the rest of his life. He and his family are humans, but are living on an alien planet where they are basically owned by these aliens and one boy from every family is made to be a host for the alien’s offspring. This particular species of aliens are limited in how many of them can reproduce. It sounds weird, and it is, but it’s a very well written short story that explores slavery, love, identity and power.

Octavia Butler was such an interesting and insightful person that really makes you question humanity and our humanness through her stories. Butler left this world way too soon and no one can ever replace her, but she does have a scholarship for young African American writers who wish to attend the Clarion Writing Workshops. The Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop was where Butler met her mentor, grand master fiction writer, Harlan Ellison.