Octavia E. Butler's first creation in the world of science fiction was herself.
Before anybody told her that black girls do not grow up to write about futuristic worlds, Butler, the daughter of a shoeshine man and a maid, was already fashioning a place for herself in a white-dominated universe.
By remaining dedicated to her craft, sweeping floors and working as a telemarketer to pay the bills; by suffering the indignities that come with being among the first; and eventually winning a MacArthur Foundation grant, Butler carved a place for herself -- and helped write a new world into existence.
Butler, whose 12 stunning, thought-provoking novels of science fiction inspired new readers and writers to explore the genre, died Saturday. Friends said Butler apparently suffered a stroke outside her home in Seattle. She was 58.
Over the years, Butler, author of the seminal work "Kindred," earned the distinction of being the first lady of a small, tightknit circle of African American writers of speculative fiction -- science fiction, horror and fantasy.
"She was an utter inspiration," said Steven Barnes, a longtime friend and science fiction author who was the first African American to write one of the novels based on "Star Wars." "I don't know what would have happened to me had I not had her as an example."
Mystery writer Walter Mosley said Butler expanded the genre "by writing a kind of fiction that African American women around the country could read and understand both technically and emotionally.... She wasn't writing romance or feel-good novels, she was writing very difficult, brilliant work."
"For an African American woman to somehow define herself as a science fiction writer and to realize that dream is an extraordinary thing," he said in an interview Monday.
"Kindred" is the story of a 20th century African American woman who travels in time back to the antebellum South to save her great-great-grandfather, a white plantation owner. Though published under the general banner of fiction, it exemplifies Butler's use of speculative ideas to explore issues such as the relationship between the empowered and the powerless.
In the worlds that Butler created, African Americans and other people of color were present and significant in ways they had not been before. That inclusion not only attracted readers, it allowed Butler to use the genre as a powerful means of speaking to a range of issues including race, gender and the environment while also mastering the tenets of science fiction writing.
