Why should you read sci-fi superstar Octavia E. Butler? - Ayana Jamieson and Moya Bailey

Following a devastating nuclear war,

Lilith Iyapo awakens
after 200 years of stasis

to find herself surrounded by a group
of aliens called the Oankali.

These highly intelligent beings
want to do something

they claim will be mutually beneficial:

trade DNA by breeding with humans

so that each species’ genes
can fortify the other.

Should Lilith hold on to her ideas
of what it means to be human,

or make a leap into the biological
unknown?

These questions haunt Octavia Butler’s Dawn,

the first in her trilogy Lilith’s Brood.

A visionary storyteller who upended science fiction,

Butler built stunning worlds throughout her work–

and explored dilemmas that keep us awake at night.

Born in 1947,

Butler grew up shy and introverted in
Pasadena, California.

She dreamt up stories from an early age,

and was soon scribbling these scenarios on paper.

At twelve, she begged her mother for a typewriter

after enduring a campy science fiction film called Devil Girl From Mars.

Unimpressed with what she saw,

Butler knew she could tell a better story.

Much science fiction featured white male heroes

who blasted aliens or were uninvited saviors for brown people.

Butler wanted to write diverse characters

and bring nuance and depth to the representation of their experiences,

all while exploring mind-bending scenarios.

For Butler,

imagination was not only for planting the seeds of science fiction–

but also a strategy for surviving an unjust world on one’s own terms.

Typically, her work takes troubling features of the world

such as discrimination on the basis of race, gender, class, or ability,

and invites the reader to contemplate them in new contexts.

One of her most beloved novels,

the Parable of the Sower,

follows this pattern.

It tells the story of Lauren Oya Olamina

as she makes her way through a world
ruined by corporate greed,

inequality, and environmental destruction.

As she struggles with hyperempathy,

or the ability to feel others’ pain,

Lauren embarks on a quest with a group
of refugees to find a place to thrive.

There, they seek to live in accordance
with Lauren’s found religion, Earthseed,

which is based on the principle

that humans must adapt to an
ever-changing world.

Lauren’s quest had roots
in a real life event–

California Prop 187,

which attempted to deny illegal immigrants
fundamental human rights,

before it was deemed unconstitutional.

Butler frequently incorporated
contemporary news into her writing.

In her 1998 sequel to The Parable of the
Sower, Parable of the Talents,

she wrote of a presidential candidate

who controls Americans with virtual
reality and “shock collars.”

His slogan? “Make America great again.”

While people have noted her prescience,

Butler was also interested in
re-examining history.

For instance,

Kindred tells the story of a woman

who is repeatedly pulled back in time

to the Maryland plantation
of her ancestors.

Early on, she learns that her mission
is to save the life of the white man

who will rape her great grandmother.

If she doesn’t, she herself
will cease to exist.

This grim dilemma forces Dana to
confront the ongoing trauma

of slavery and sexual violence
against Black women.

With her stories of women who
founded new societies,

time travelers overcoming
historical strife,

and interspecies bonding,

Butler had a profound influence on growing
popularity of Afrofuturism.

That’s a movement where Black writers and
artists who are inspired by the future

produce works that incorporate magic,
history, technology and much more.

And today,

Butler’s work remains a powerful reminder

that imagination can be a tool
for real change–

as well as a rallying call for those who
seek other ways to be in the world.

As Lauren comes to learn in
Parable of the Sower,

"All that you touch you Change.

All that you Change Changes you.

The only lasting truth is Change.”