"A hermit in the middle of Los Angeles" is one way she described herself - born in 1947, Butler became a writer who wanted to "tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know." Since her death in 2006, her writing has been widely taken up and praised for its foresight in suggesting developments such as big pharma and for its critique of American history. Shahidha Bari is joined by the author Irenosen Okojie and the scholar Gerry Canavan and Nisi Shawl, writer, editor, journalist – and long time friend of Octavia Butler.
Irenosen Okojie's latest collection of short stories is called Nudibranch and she was winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for Fiction for her story Grace Jones. You can hear her discussing her own writing life alongside Nadifa Mohamed in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz Gerry Canavan is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction. Nisi Shawl writes about books for The Seattle Times, and also contributes frequently to Ms. Magazine, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, The Washington Post.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You might be interested in the Free Thinking episode Science fiction and ecological thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6yw and on Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37 and a playlist exploring Landmarks of Culture including Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and the writing of Audre Lorde, and of Wole Soyinka https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Greek myth, goddesses and art
Prize Winners 2023
Harry Belafonte
Margaret Cavendish
Narnia and CS Lewis
Humboldt, soil, gardens and Frank Walter
New Thinking: Disability in Music and Theatre
Kadare, Gospodinov, Kafka and Dickens
Libraries
Lorca
AS Byatt and The Children's Book
Post-War Germany
Sam Selvon and The Lonely Londoners
New Thinking: Rediscovering women making film and sculpture
Ursula Le Guin and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Women, art and activism
Shakespeare as inspiration
New Thinking: The Box Office Bears project
New Thinking: How and why we talk
The Imperial War Museum Remembrance discussion 2023
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Global News Podcast
The Infinite Monkey Cage
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins