Sign-In
Cart
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Paperback
Literary FiguresBlack American HistoryLiterary Criticism
Publisher Price: $18.99
ISBN13: 9780063211834
Publisher: Amistad Press
Published: Jul 21 2026
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.49
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.35 Depth: 7.95
Language: English
A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.
As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity--our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. Her fiction charts the rise and fall of the American project--the nation's transformation from a provincial backwater to a capitalist juggernaut--made possible by chattel slavery--to a bloated imperialist superpower on the verge of implosion.
In this outstanding work, Susana M. Morris places Butler's story firmly within the cultural, social, and historical context that shaped her life: the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women's liberation, queer rights, Reaganomics. Morris reveals how these influences profoundly impacted Butler's personal and intellectual trajectory and shaped the ideas central to her writing. Her cautionary tales warn us about succumbing to fascism, gender-based violence, and climate chaos while offering alternate paradigms to religion, family, and understanding our relationships to ourselves. Butler envisioned futures with Black women at the center, raising our awareness of how those who are often dismissed have the knowledge to shift the landscape of our world. But her characters are no magical martyrs, they are tough, flawed, intelligent, and complicated, a reflection of Butler's stories.
Morris explains what drove Butler: She wrote because she felt she must. Who was I anyway? Why should anyone pay attention to what I had to say? Did I have anything to say? I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God's sake. At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing? Well, whatever it was, I couldn't stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all.
Also from
Morris, Susana M.
Also in
Literary Figures
Merton and Friends: A Joint Biography of Thomas Merton, Robert Lax and Edward Rice
Harford, James
Hardcover
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Cirino, Mark
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Hardcover
Go Deep and Take Plenty of Root: A Prairie-Norwegian Father, Rebellion in Minneapolis, Basement Zen, Growing Up, Growing Tender
Storlie, Erik Fraser
Paperback
Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963
Powers, J. F.
Paperback
Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival
Greenblatt, Stephen
Hardcover
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of Winnie-The-Pooh
Brandreth, Gyles
Hardcover
Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Steinbeck, John
Paperback
The Village on the Edge of the World: Writing and Surviving in Ceausescu's Romania
Müller, Herta
Hardcover
Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft: A Memoir on Writing (Large Print Edition)
Coben, Harlan
Paperback
The War for Middle-Earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945
Loconte, Joseph
Hardcover
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
Miss Greene's Secret: Based on the True Story of the Black Librarian Who Shaped the Morgan Library
Antona, Nicolas
Hardcover
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis: A Library of America Special Publication
Wallace, David Foster
Hardcover
Mon Cher Amour: The Love Letters of Albert Camus and Maria Casares, 1944-1959
Camus, Albert
Hardcover
Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece the Sun Also Rises
Blume, Lesley M. M.
Paperback
Henry and June: From a Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary (1931-1932) of Anais Nin
Nin, Anaïs
Paperback
The World of Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None a 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle: Illustrated by Ruby Ash
Agatha Christie Ltd, Agatha Christie
Other