Octavia Butler Archives

One More Embrace: Octavia’s Future/Present

Butler’s work helps us see how time is a spiral, how the present moment is always layered with multiple pasts and underlying alternate futures.

Rather than politically utopian, Butler’s stories teach us about grief, consolation, hope, and—most of all—how to live in struggle.

“She wanted people to be curious and take action in their lives. Not be sheep. To find the ways we can work together in crisis.”

Pandemics, racist violence, climate change, democratic collapse: it’s finally clear that it’s Butler’s world. We’re just living in it.

“Octavia Butler teaches us,” explains Black playwright Ericka Dickerson-Despenza, “…that we have two options in Apocalypse: adapt or die.”