Conversations with Octavia Butler (Literary Conversations Series)

Octavia Butler (1947-2006) spent the majority of her prolific career as the only major black female author of science fiction. Winner of both the Nebula and Hugo Awards as well as a MacArthur genius grant the first for a science fiction writer Butler created worlds that challenged notions of race sex gender and humanity. Whether in the postapocalyptic future of the Parable stories in the human inability to assimilate change and difference in the Xenogenesis books or in the destructive sense of superiority in the Patternist series Butler held up a mirror reflecting what is beautiful corrupt worthwhile and damning about the world we inhabit. In interviews ranging from 1980 until just before her sudden death in 2006 Conversations with Octavia Butler reveals a writer very much aware of herself as the rare bird of science fiction even as she shows frustration with the constant questionHow does it feel to be the only one? Whether discussing humanitys biological imperatives or the difference between science fiction and fantasy or the plight of the working poor in America Butler emerges in these interviews as funny intelligent complicated and intensely original.