Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories (LOA #338) (Hardcover)

Hardcover. The definitive edition of the complete works of the "grand dame" of American science fiction begins with this volume gathering two novels and her collected storiesAn original and eerily prophetic writer, Octavia E. Butler used the conventions of science fiction to explore the dangerous legacy of racism in America in harrowingly personal terms. She broke new ground with books that featured complex Black female protagonistsI wrote myself in, she would later recallestablishing herself as one of thepioneers of the Afrofuturist aesthetic. In 1995 she became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, in recognition of her achievement in creating new aspirations for the genre and for American literature. This rst volume in the Library of America edition of Butlers collected works opens with her masterpiece, Kindred, one of the landmark American novels of the last half century. Its heroine, Dana, a Black woman, is pulled back and forth between the present and the preCivil War past, where she nds herself enslaved on the plantation of a white ancestor whose life she must save to preserve her own. In Fledgling, an amnesiac discovers that she is a vampire, with a difference: she is a new, experimental birth with brown skin, giving her the fearful ability to go out in sunlight. Rounding out the volume are eight short stories and ve essaysincluding two never before collected, plus a newly researched chronology of Butlers life and career and helpful explanatory notes prepared by scholar Gerry Canavan. Butlers friend, the writer and editor Nisi Shawl, provides an introduction. The definitive edition of the complete works of the "grand dame" of American science fiction begins with gathering two novels and the complete stories in one volume for the first time, plus two essays from the Butler archive. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…