Classic Literature by Black Authors (part 1)

"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison

"Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou

"Black Boy" by Richard Wright

Understanding Octavia E. Butler - REVIEW

by Kendra R. Parker 

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006), a pioneer of science fiction and foremother of Afrofuturism, is among the most influential science fiction writers of all time. Butler's work blurs the boundaries of commercial genres, exploring themes of race, gender and sexuality, religion, politics, and environment. A recipient of the MacArthur "Genius Grant" and PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, Butler is best known for her novels Kindred (1979), Parable of the Sower (1993), and Fledgling (2005).

In Understanding Octavia E. Butler, Kendra R. Parker surveys Butler's life, career, and major works, highlighting her ongoing interest in Black peoples' pasts, presents, and futures. After a biographical introduction, Parker evaluates Butler's career chronologically and thematically, with chapters covering her engagement with the African American literary tradition, her romance novels, and her nonfiction.

Kendra R. Parker is associate professor of African American Literature at Georgia Southern University. She is the author of She Bites Back: Black Female Vampires in African American Women's Novels, 1977–2011, and coeditor of The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler. Parker is president of the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society and has appeared on NPR's hit podcast It's Been a Minute.

University of South Carolina Press

ISBN-13: 978-1643365770

Wild Seed (the Patternist Series, 1) - REVIEW

by Octavia Butler

In an "epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant" story of love and hate, two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together -- and changing the destiny of the human race (Viola Davis).

Doro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one -- until he meets Anyanwu.

Anyanwu is an entity like Doro and yet different. She can heal with a bite and transform her own body, mending injuries and reversing aging. She uses her powers to cure her neighbors and birth entire tribes, surrounding herself with kindred who both fear and respect her. No one poses a true threat to Anyanwu -- until she meets Doro.

The moment Doro meets Anyanwu, he covets her; and from the villages of 17th-century Nigeria to 19th-century United States, their courtship becomes a power struggle that echoes through generations, irrevocably changing what it means to be human.

ISBN-13: 978-1538751480
Grand Central Publishing