[photo credit: Pasadena Public Library]
The collaborative series alternates between The Huntington’s Smith Board Room and La Pintoresca Branch Library. Past meetings have included discussions of Butler’s novelette “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” in April 2024.
La Pintoresca holds special significance in Butler’s life. Her mother, who worked as a housemaid, couldn’t afford books and would drop young Octavia at the library on her way to work, where Butler spent hours reading.
Butler (1947-2006) became the first African American woman to gain widespread recognition in science fiction. She received the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant in 1995—the first science fiction writer to receive this award. Her novel “Parable of the Talents” won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1999.
The Huntington houses Butler’s complete literary archive, comprising 302 linear feet of manuscripts and materials bequeathed in August 2008. The Huntington’s current exhibition “Stories from the Library: From Brontë to Butler” runs through June 15, featuring Butler’s handwritten notes and materials from her nearly 200 notebooks.
Octavia E. Butler Science Fiction Book Club will run on Saturday, January 24 at 3 p.m. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Smith Board Room, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California. For more information, call (626) 405-2100 or visit https://www.cityofpasadena.net/library/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D194049786. Admission: Free with registration.
