She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation 'Genius' Grant.Īfter her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. Or, if he is not careful, he could become a plague that will destroy this new race once and for all.

If this frightened young man is able to master his new identity, Jodahs could prove the savior of what’s left of mankind. As his body changes, Jodahs develops the ability to shapeshift, manipulate matter, and cure or create disease at will. Jodahs is supposed to be just another hybrid of human and Oankali, but as he begins his transformation to adulthood he finds himself becoming ooloi-the first ever born to a human mother. The Oankali began a massive breeding project, guided by the ooloi, a sexless subspecies capable of manipulating DNA, in the hope of eventually creating a perfect starfaring race. Human and Oankali have been mating since the aliens first came to Earth to rescue the few survivors of an annihilating nuclear war. The stunning conclusion to a postapocalyptic trilogy about an alien species merging with humans-from “one of science fiction’s finest writers” (TheNew York Times).

Octavia e. butler book on aliens