Octavia Butler and Communication

Octavia Butler on Communication

More on Octavia Butler from MIT, where she "participated in a series of discussions on science fiction, media, and imagination". This site includes her terrific essay on why she writes (oh, dammit, wrote) science fiction, called "Devil Girl from Mars", and a discussion about science fiction among writers including Butler and Samuel R. Delany, the foremost African American male science fiction writer. The discussion is really about language or communication and what happens when language doesn't work the way we all already accept, which is a common theme in her books (and now that I think about it, one of the reasons I'm so crazy about them). What if, asks Butler, everybody could understand each other completely, via telepathy? What would really happen? and what if suddenly no one could read or write anything at all? What changes would those things wreak on society?

This site is wonderful, and just heightens the loss. I'm not sure I'll be able to go buy her latest book for a while, since it will also be her last.

Tags:
Octavia Butler
Science Fiction
Communication