![]() Parable of the Sower is one of my favorites of Butler's novels," says Nettrice Gaskins.Ģ021, Deep Dream. "I had 'Earthseed' in mind when I created the portrait of Octavia Butler. “Being a social justice warrior can be about writing and envisioning and depicting new realities for social justice to be enacted and highlighting what is wrong so that we can make it right.” She is “this magnifying, visionary author and was and is a social justice warrior for our times.” While the shy Butler did not fit the image of a social activist marching and carrying a sign, she still fills the role well in Montgomery’s view. “Octavia Butler was one of the invited authors, and not only did she generously share her presence, but she also donated the typewriter to the museum, along with the ribbons.”īutler is not just a talented writer, says Montgomery. The museum received it directly from Butler in 2004, when it went on view in the exhibition, “All the Stories Are True,” explains Jennifer Sieck, the museum’s collections researcher. Another- Fledgling -unravels the secret and horrible history of a woman with amnesia.Ī Smithsonian artifact-an Olivetti typewriter-from the collections of the Anacostia Community Museum will represent Butler’s life in the "Futures" show.Ī Smithsonian artifact-an Olivetti typewriter-from the collections of the Anacostia Community Museum will represent Butler’s life in the “Futures” show. One stand-alone and well-known novel- Kindred -tells the story of a young Black woman who travels back and forth between the 1970s and the pre-Civil War South. She produced a six-book Patternist series, which focuses on mind control and traces an alien plague from the ancient past into the future an Xenogenesis trilogy, which details human evolution after a catastrophic nuclear war and a two-book Parable series, which tracks the formation of a teenage African American girl’s new belief system, beginning in a dystopian version of the 2020s. While many of Butler’s works are dystopian in nature, “We know that ultimately, her work aims to unite and go from what does the future of sorrow look like to what does the future of strength look like.”ĭuring her career, Butler wrote 12 novels and one collection of short stories. “Anchoring her in the exhibition in the hall that we call ‘Futures That Unite’ is really important because her books have united people across time and space and ages and identities,” says Monica Montgomery, the exhibition team’s social justice curator. Butler is one of the futurists who will be honored in the Smithsonian’s expansive “Futures” exhibition, which will mark the Institution’s 175th anniversary and will debut in the Arts and Industries Building late this year. In developing science fiction writing as her craft, after disparaging a campy sci-fi flick, Butler became a master storyteller whose unique works revealed how members of the African diaspora could use their own power to shape alternative futures. ![]() Recognizing current inequality in many areas, including access to technology, Afrofuturists look beyond that imbalance to the opportunity for brighter futures. Afrofuturism has been defined as “the intersection of sci-fi and Black pride” and as “a reimagining of a future abundant with arts, science and technology as seen through a Black lens.” Works of Afrofuturism typically feature African iconography as well as elements of technoculture. Although her work began before the term had been introduced by critic Mark Dery in 1993, Butler has been situated in the vanguard of Afrofuturism, a phenomenon that celebrates the exploration of futures for the African diaspora. Her 1993 book, Parable of the Sower, was a New York Times notable book when it first came out, but in 2020-27 years after its publication, her prescient tale of a world upended by global warming and failed leadership reached the Times’ best-seller list. In 1995 she became the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. ![]() Since then, Butler has gathered a large contingent of loyal fans who continue to see new possibilities through her work.īutler, who died in 2006, received two Nebula Awards, two Hugo Awards, and a lifetime achievement award in writing from the PEN America Literary Awards. Butler started writing at the age of 10 and begged her mother to buy her a typewriter. After seeing it, the budding storyteller said she knew that she could do something better. When she became successful, the award-winning author revealed that her inspiration was the unimaginative 1954 film, Devil Girl from Mars. Butler discovered the appeal of science fiction when she was 12.
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