Literary Diva: Octavia E. Butler

I've known of Octavia E. Butler for a while now and shamefully this is the first time I've read any of her work. I have a long way to go to being well read of the black literary legends of this country. There are just so many!

Octavia Estelle Butler, often referred to as the “grand dame of science fiction,” was born in Pasadena, California on June 22, 1947.  She received an Associate of Arts degree in 1968 from Pasadena Community College, and also attended California State University in Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles.  During 1969 and 1970, she studied at the Screenwriter’s Guild Open Door Program and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, where she took a class with science fiction master Harlan Ellison (who later became her mentor), and which led to Butler selling her first science fiction stories. She won the Hugo Award in 1984 for her short story, “Speech Sounds,” and in 1985, Butler’s novelette “Bloodchild” won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and an award for best novelette from Science Fiction Chronicle. In 1995 Butler was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship. - Bio from her website

I've begun Butler's 4 part series entitled the Patternist or Seed to Harvest. I just finished the first book in the series, Wild Seed, and my mind is blown. I live for black fantasy and science fiction as you know. My mother told me about this series, but when she first described the book she mentioned that it took place during slavery in the US.

NOPE. NO. NO NO NO NO. I ride for black fantasy so hard because it allows me to imagine a world where the horrors and afterbirth of slavery never existed. Where black folk live in strength, power and majesty; so I don't like to mix the two.

I was wrong to dismiss this book because of that.

Due to the supernatural nature of the main characters, they are mostly unaffected by slavery. Plus this story is so much more than that. This is the story of our ancestors re-imagined as magical, powerful and eternal. Both of the main characters, Doro and Anyanwu, are from Africa and carry a long rich history. Anyanwu is an amazing healer and shape-shifter. Doro is a malevolent force of great horror and terror. Upon their meeting, both seemed to be forever bound to each other clashing and struggling together over hundreds of years. Luckily, the goodness of Anyanwu remains.

Anyanwu is the epitome of black girl magic. She is the black woman you want to be when you grow up. Anyanwu is powerful, graceful, beautiful, compassionate, caring, empathetic, loving, strong, independent and courageous. She is the mother of Africa, nurturer and healer of her children. No one rules over her absolutely, not even Doro who seeks to enslave her as his own precious possession. She is her own woman. Confident in herself, in her skin and in her fate to live out much of her life as feared and respected goddess.

She was stolen away from Africa and sent to the Americas in the hopes of creating the impossible, something both deadly and precarious. The means by which Doro seeks to form this creation are even more disturbing and unthinkable. Through her trials she remains the light of her loved ones, and the community of extraordinary individuals who surround her. It is through her strength that all are able to withstand the tribulations of Doro. He seeks power over by violent and destructive means. Anyanwu maintains her power under, through service and love.

This is a wondrous and fantastic work. I am sure the rest of the books in the series will be just as amazing. Please. Please do yourself a favor and read Octavia Butler's Seed to Harvest.