Kindred by Octavia Butler: Research Guide

Colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2023-24 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 351 programs and their title selections, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2023-24. We will continue to update this listing to provide the most comprehensive record of programs available anywhere and welcome information about titles and institutions we might have overlooked. Please feel free to contact us here with additional information.

In her introduction to the graphic novel adaptation of Butler’s Kindred, Okorafor writes:

I first came across Octavia’s work around 2001, when I was well on my way to identifying as a black female writer of speculative fiction. I was attending the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop at Michigan State University, and the organizers had brought my group to the local bookstore. As I strolled through the aisles, something extraordinary caught my eye, something I’d only ever seen once before in the science fiction and fantasy section of a bookstore: a cover featuring a dark-skinned black woman.

News, Butler's Oeuvre, Resources.

Octavia Butler was a pioneering writer of science fiction. As one of the first African American and female science fiction writers, Butler wrote novels that concerned themes of injustice towards African Americans, global warming, women’s rights, and political disparity. Her books are now taught in schools and universities across the U.S.

Los Angeles public library event reflecting on Octavia Bulter's legacy in the genre of science fiction and speculative fiction and how it will continue to inspire authors and readers for generations to come.

Nnedi Okorafor, Nisi Shawl, Tananarive Due, and N.K. Jemisin are just a few of the many authors she influenced with her words and ideas.

Octavia Butler used to say she remembers exactly when she decided to become a science fiction writer. She was 9 years old and saw a 1954 B-movie called Devil Girl from Mars, and two things struck her. First: "Geez, I can write a better story than that!" And second: "Somebody got paid for writing that story!" If they could, she decided, then she could, too.