Octavia Butler, brilliant master of sci-fi, dies at 58

By Emily Heffter
Staff reporter
Seattle Times

For more than 30 years, Seattle science-fiction novelist Octavia Butler dreamed up fantastic worlds and religions, made-up creatures and futuristic plots. Then, in her stylistic prose, she used them to tackle the social issues she was most passionate about.

"Parable of the Talents," a futuristic story about a utopian community ravaged by civil war, explored modern-day issues of intolerance, the growing gap between rich and poor, and environmentalism. In her first novel, "Kindred," she plunged into racial issues when a modern-day character was transported into the body of a pre-Civil War slave.

"What [Ms. Butler] was writing for the first time was a kind of woman's-eye view, a very smart woman's-eye view, of say, 'Brave New World' or '1984,' " said writer Harlan Ellison, Ms. Butler's friend and mentor.

Ms. Butler died Friday at Northwest Hospital after a fall at her home in Lake Forest Park. She was 58.

"I consider Octavia to be the most important science-fiction writer since Mary Shelley," said Steven Barnes, an African-American science-fiction writer and friend of Ms. Butler's. She wrote about race successfully because she did it with such subtlety, he said.

Though she was a giant in the science-fiction world, Ms. Butler was such a private person that even her closest friends said they knew little about her.

Ellison said Ms. Butler had a number of obstacles to overcome in the writing business, among them being female and being black.

But Ms. Butler persevered to become one of the few well-known African-American science-fiction writers.

In 1995, she won a $295,000 MacArthur Fellowship, known as the "genius grant." In 2000, she received the Nebula Award for her novel "Parable of the Talents." The Nebula award is science fiction's highest prize.

Read more

Comments

[thepoetryman]

Unknown Liberty

[LJ]

This is pretty Cool:

Bill Clinton Urges Governors to Help Change Nation's Eating Habits