Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. 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. The Silks fear the genetic “marriage” of human and Ina DNA, which is the basis of Shori’s existence.Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. Although America’s anti-miscegenation laws were struck down in 1967, widespread fear of interracial relationships and the “tainting” of the white race still exist today. This alludes to the historical fear of miscegenation, which led to the criminalization of interracial marriage. In a racist twist on the “slippery slope” fallacy, the Silks also believe that Shori’s Blackness will somehow lead to harmful genetic modifications of their species. Although Shori’s dark skin allows her to stay awake during the day and withstand the sun longer than pale Ina, the Silks denounce the genetic experiments that made her possible. They consider humans-even symbionts who are needed for Ina survival-to be beneath Ina and no better than animals. The Silk family, Katharine Dahlman, and their sympathizers believe that Shori Matthews’s (Black) human DNA goes against the very fabric of the “superior” Ina species. Butler uses the Ina, a vampiric species closely related to humans, to show how racism is so systemic that it can even transcend species. Fledgling is primarily an allegory meant to illustrate the deadly power of white supremacy in our society.

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler