The Voice of Octavia Butler

I am a fan of Octavia Butler, the Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction author also the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant. She wrote at a time when Black women were not writing science fiction, both because they were Black and because they were women. She broke countless molds and created numerous memorable characters and stories. "Each story I create creates me," she said, and, as a writer, I admire her words.

I recently read "Kindred" (generally considered one of her greatest works), written in the mid-1970s. It was about a Black woman married to a White man who is transported to the antebellum South to save one of her White ancestors. It dealt with the realities of slavery, the nature of self-respect, and the difference in attitudes between the time periods. Having gobbled up many of her other works with glee, I expected to be overwhelmed by the experience. I was not. I started to question myself as to why I did not fully appreciate the work. Was it because I am not Black? Was it because, not having lived the Black Experience, I could not relate to the situation? I posted a query on the Black Science Fiction Society forum, asking for clarification. I spoke with other writers and readers who are Black to find out why I had such a huge "disconnect" with this story.

I know that part of the problem were some plot devices Butler used to make the story happen; they were not convincing to me and seemed to be there just to make something happen the way she needed it to. I felt deeply that some of the problem lay in the fact that this interracial couple never really discussed their different views of what they had gone through back in time. I was told that, while I could relate to the main character as a woman, in this more than any of Butler's other stories, it made a difference that I was not Black - there was so much unspoken that I could not know on a gut level.

While I understand how this could be true, I do not consider myself naive to the plight of Black America. I am deeply ashamed of what the White people of this country did to the Blacks they forced here against their will. I am engaged to a wonderful African-American man who has increased my knowledge of his history. I think much of the problem I had with this book came from history, specifically the time that Butler wrote "Kindred." It was a time of social upheaval. There was only so much she could "get away with" in her story before no publisher would put it out there. She, herself, was constrained by the culture at the time to not make her book too provocative, too unsettling for the White audience. And that is a shame. Science fiction, of all the genres, is the most open and forgiving about tackling social injustices in its stories. For Butler's true voice to have been silenced (in my own opinion), goes against what science fiction is all about.

Still, Butler was a pioneering voice, both for women and for the African-American community. I can only wish she could have lived longer, so we could hear more of what she had to say.