Octavia Butler, 58, Science Fiction Author

Octavia Butler, who died Saturday at 58, seemed at first glance a stranger in the strange land of science fiction writing.A black woman who made a name for herself in a form whose stereotypical readers ad writers are white male nerds, Stewart penned a dozen genre bending novels over a 30-year career.In a brief autobiography, Butler described herself as someone who fit at least part of the conventional sci-fi mold. “I’m comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”Butler was born June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, Calif., and known to family and friends as “Junie.” She spent part of her childhood on her grandmother’s chicken farm near Victorville, where there was no electricity, telephone, or running water. While still very young, she began writing fiction, a hobby that fit in well with her reserved personality.At 18, she earned a spot in a screenwriting program, conceived by a group of writers that included the writer Harlan Ellison, who urged her to try novels.Her first book, “Patternmaster” (1974) was a dystopian tale of a future in which humanity is divided into a telepathic ruling class of “Patternists” and “Clayarks,” four-legged creatures contaminated by a disease brought back from outer space.Butler was unusual in bringing black characters and history into science fiction, especially in “Kindred” (1979), the story of a 20th century black woman who time-travels back to the antebellum South to save her great great grandfather, a white plantation owner.By 1995 Butler had written 10 novels, including “Parable of the Sower” and won the nation’s two top prizes for writers of science fiction. That year the MacArthur Foundation, awarded a stunned Butler $295,000 grant. She used the money to buy a new home for herself and her mother, with whom she lived.Butler’s 12th and final book, “Fledgling,” was published in November.“In black speculative fiction, we are a tiny family and Octavia Butler was our matriarch,” said writer Tananarive Due. “So we just lost our mother, our grandmother.”Butler died of a suspected stroke after collapsing outside her home in Seattle, Wash.

Octavia Butler, 58, Science Fiction Author

Octavia Butler, 58, Science Fiction Author

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