The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens announced that it is the recipient of Octavia Butler’s papers. Butler, the “most prominent African American woman in the field of science fiction,” died in 2006 at the age of 58.
The Huntington’s Susan Turner-Lowe says the collection “takes a prominent position among The Huntington’s holdings representing the careers of other modern literary figures such as Jack London, Christopher Isherwood, and Charles Bukowski.”
David Zeidberg, the Huntington’s library director, said “Octavia Butler was not only an award-winning science fiction writer, but in a broader context, an important American literary figure, and her papers will be an invaluable resource for scholars.” The collection is now being sorted and cataloged, and should be available to researchers “in the coming year.”
Sara Hodson, the Huntington’s curator of literary manuscripts, had asked Butler years ago if she would be interested in placing her papers at The Huntington. Sometime later Butler informed Hodson that she named The Huntington in her will. “I was over the moon about it,” said Hodson, “but I’m crushed to see it come true so soon. We are so grateful for her gift but so very sorry that she’s gone.”
The collection comprises 39 cartons and eight file cabinet drawers of manuscripts, correspondence, school papers, notebooks, photographs, and other materials. “She was a towering intellect who took copious notes about everything, and she kept it all,” said Hodson. “She had an amazing system for organizing her subject files. She read voraciously and clipped newspapers, magazines, and journals night and day. The collection is a feast of information and insight into the mind of a writer, and into the writer’s process.”
Butler wrote a dozen novels, and won two Hugo Awards, two Nebulas, and a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1995. The MacArthur award marked the first time a science fiction writer had been so honored. Butler gave lectures periodically at The Huntington and participated in the institution’s contemporary author series in the late 1990s.
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens is a collections-based research and educational institution serving scholars and the general public, located at 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California. For more information, see www.huntington.org.