美国国家公共电台 NPR Octavia Butler: Writing Herself Into The Story

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And we're going to spend the next few minutes hearing about an African-American woman who would not let cultural norms stand in the way of her imagination. Her name is Octavia Butler, and she was a literary giant in the world of science fiction, a genre¹ that was and is dominated by white men. The Huntington Library just north of LA is honoring Butler and her work in an exhibition this summer. Here's Karen Grigsby Bates from our Code Switch team.

KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE²: Octavia Butler's vivid imagination was the product of a smart kid who spent a lot of time alone.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCI-FI BUZZ")

OCTAVIA BUTLER: I'm an only child, and I had no idea how to get along with other children. And also, I was a strange kid who'd learned to stay by herself and make things up.

BATES: That's Butler, who died in 2006, talking to "Sci-Fi Buzz." The strange kid grew up in her widowed mother's Pasadena home. Young Octavia spent her time reading and writing stories. The early ones were about horses, but when she was 9, Octavia Butler stumbled upon something that would change her life.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BUTLER: I was influenced to write science fiction two years after I began writing other things by a bad movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS")

PATRICIA LAFFAN: (As Nyah) You poor lamented³ humans. Imagine you can destroy me with your old-fashioned toy.

BATES: That really bad 1954 sci-fi movie was "Devil Girl From Mars," she tells a UCLA audience. Here, Devil Girl strides into a pub and tells its armed patrons their puny⁴ little guns are no match for her.

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LAFFAN: (As Nyah) I can control power beyond your wildest dreams.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BUTLER: My response to the movie was, geez, I can write a better story than that. Somebody got paid for writing that story.

BATES: By the time she was in high school, Butler became determined⁵ that she would be one of those paid somebodies, something that worried her conservative mother. The paying world was not full of science fiction writers, let alone ones that were women or Negro. So through community college and after, Butler held what she called lots of horrible little jobs to pay the bills. But she continued to focus her creative energy on science fiction.

It was a focus that would lead to a pile of novels and short stories, several awards and a coveted⁶ MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called genius grant. Visitors can see Butler's career unfolding in the Huntington Library's exhibit, "Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories."

NATALIE RUSSELL: So the exhibit is roughly chronological⁷.

BATES: Exhibit curator Natalie Russell walks me into the large high-ceilinged room.

RUSSELL: There's about 100 items in the exhibit selected from the archive, which includes over 8,000 individually catalogued manuscripts, letters and photographs and an additional 80 boxes of ephemera.

BATES: Big glass cases display letters, notes, story outlines and drawings that show how Butler progressed as a writer. The walls are hung with blowups of childhood drawings and her handwritten instructions to herself for scene setting, character development and affirmations. Russell reads one.

RUSSELL: (Reading) I am a best-selling writer. I write best-selling books.

These are some of the kind of motivational notes that she would write to herself. (Reading) Every day in every way, I am researching and writing my award-winning, best-selling books and short stories.

BATES: Butler's high school portrait and a group photo of her at an early science fiction writers' workshop show a young woman who stares purposefully into the camera without a hint of a smile. It's the face of someone who has set herself a task. Natalie Russell says it took a good deal of persistence⁸ for Butler to create something for which there was no template.

RUSSELL: Butler said she wanted to be able to see herself in the stories that she loved. And she didn't, so she wrote herself in, and she became that role model that she didn't have.

BATES: Before Octavia Butler, science fiction's main characters tended to be white and male. When she began writing, she was told people would accept alien characters far more quickly than black ones. Her early book covers had white characters on them because publishers were not convinced white readers would buy them otherwise. In a 2000 interview, Butler tells Charlie Rose she was undeterred.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BUTLER: I don't recall ever having wanted desperately⁹ to be a black woman science fiction writer. I wanted to be a writer.

BATES: She wrote her first novels while working. The "Patternmaster" was published in 1976, the first of a series that elaborated on a story she began in childhood, a story of elite¹⁰ beings with telepathic superpowers who ruled a mute subclass. It was a study in power, morality and race. In 1979, she published "Kindred," one of the books that came to be most closely associated with her. Natalie Russell describes it.

RUSSELL: A tale about a contemporary African-American woman who travels back in time to antebellum Maryland to a slave plantation¹¹.

BATES: Butler's heroine, Dana, is a writer who has to save her slave-owning ancestor's life so she can exist more than 150 years later. Russell said Butler did a lot of research for this book.

RUSSELL: She needed to go to Maryland, see what the geography was like, find out what a working slave plantation was like. How far away were the towns? If you were trying to run away, where would you go? Was it forest? Was it brush?

BATES: Those details helped make "Kindred" a classic. Its theme of interdependence is taught in high schools and colleges annually¹² and has been part of citywide reading programs. And it was almost named something else. Natalie Russell says Butler's publisher wanted to call the book "Dana." Butler hated that and sent several alternatives.

RUSSELL: And in the carbon copy of the letter she sent here on the case, December 26, 1978, she offers a few more suggestions, including "Birthright" and "Kindred."

BATES: "Kindred" paved the way for a number of books, like the "Parable¹³ Of The Sower," that looked at life in the dystopian near future. Octavia Butler may have begun as the only black woman science fiction writer, but she made sure she didn't remain the only one. Steven Barnes is a science fiction writer and was a longtime friend of Butler's. Over Skype, he says this.

STEVEN BARNES: She opened a door and walked all the way through it and created, therefore, a path for others.

BATES: His wife, sci-fi writer Tananarive Due, sees the result.

TANANARIVE DUE: When I met her in 1997 as a new writer, you could fit all of the black science fiction or fantasy writers on a stage. And that's not case anymore. The field has exploded so much.

BATES: Butler enjoyed her role in making that happen. Those sober photos from her earlier years were replaced by smiling, confident ones. In addition to her MacArthur Fellowship, Butler was awarded two of science fiction's highest honors, the Hugo and the Nebula¹⁴, twice. The tall kid who'd shrunk from speaking now held forth¹⁵ with ease, charming her audiences and interviewers.

And then it all stopped. On February 24, 2006, Octavia Butler fell near her home, hit her head and died. She was 58 years old. Steven Barnes says her 30-year career will have a lasting¹⁶ effect on literature.

BARNES: You take black away from her name, and she is still considered to be one of the major science fiction influences, especially one of the major female influences. So her place is secure.

BATES: "Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories" will be at the Huntington Library through August 7. Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF RRAREBEAR SONG, "ZEN OUT")

1 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 lamented   

adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• her late lamented husband 她那令人怀念的已故的丈夫
• We lamented over our bad luck. 我们为自己的不幸而悲伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 puny   

adj.微不足道的，弱小的

参考例句：

• The resources at the central banks' disposal are simply too puny.中央银行掌握的资金实在太少了。
• Antonio was a puny lad,and not strong enough to work.安东尼奥是个瘦小的小家伙，身体还不壮，还不能干活。

5 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

6 coveted   

adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图

参考例句：

• He had long coveted the chance to work with a famous musician. 他一直渴望有机会与著名音乐家一起工作。
• Ther other boys coveted his new bat. 其他的男孩都想得到他的新球棒。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 chronological   

adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的

参考例句：

• The paintings are exhibited in chronological sequence.这些画是按创作的时间顺序展出的。
• Give me the dates in chronological order.把日期按年月顺序给我。

8 persistence   

n.坚持，持续，存留

参考例句：

• The persistence of a cough in his daughter puzzled him.他女儿持续的咳嗽把他难住了。
• He achieved success through dogged persistence.他靠着坚持不懈取得了成功。

9 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。

10 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

11 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

12 annually   

adv.一年一次，每年

参考例句：

• Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。

13 parable   

n.寓言，比喻

参考例句：

• This is an ancient parable.这是一个古老的寓言。
• The minister preached a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep.牧师讲道时用了亡羊的比喻。

14 nebula   

n.星云，喷雾剂

参考例句：

• A powerful telescope can resolve a nebula into stars.一架高性能的望远镜能从星云中分辨出星球来。
• A nebula is really a discrete mass of innumerous stars.一团星云实际上是无数星体不连续的集合体。

15 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

16 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。