Know Thy Enemy

They fled from an Earth ravaged by plague and violence, seeking to fulfill their holy mission -- to discover a new home for humanity. But instead of landing in a peace-filled paradise, Earth's Missionaries find themselves caught between two warring civilizations -- the Garkohn and Tehkohn. And only one of the people from Earth, a young girl and "converted" Missionary named Alanna, has the proper survival training to see through the lies of their Garkohn "hosts," who extend the hand of friendship to the humans only to enslave them. Alanna alone can understand the necessity of becoming one with the Tehkohn "enemy." And, perhaps, she can find a way to release the Missionaries from the deadly bondage into which they have complacently fallen. Yet even if she succeeds, will Alanna merely be saving them for a still more inescapable doom . . . ?

A perfect introduction for new readers and a must-have for avid fans, this New York Times Notable Book includes "Bloodchild," winner of both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and "Speech Sounds," winner of the Hugo Award. Appearing in print for the first time, "Amnesty" is a story of a woman named Noah who works to negotiate the tense and co-dependent relationship between humans and a species of invaders. Also new to this collection is "The Book of Martha" which asks: What would you do if God granted you the ability—and responsibility—to save humanity from itself?
Like all of Octavia Butler’s best writing, these works of the imagination are parables of the contemporary world. She proves constant in her vigil, an unblinking pessimist hoping to be proven wrong, and one of contemporary literature’s strongest voices.

Novellas and stories from one of the few black women science fiction writers. The title novella is on aliens who use the bodies of humans, men included, to incubate their young, while The Evening and the Morning and the Night is on a disease whose symptom is self-mutilation.

Octavia E. Butler's masterpiece and ground-breaking exploration of power and responsibility, for fans of The Handmaid's Tale, The Power and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. With an original foreword by Ayòbámi Adébáyò.
'[Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human' New York Times
'No novel I've read this year has felt as relevant, as gut-wrenching or as essential' The Pool
In 1976, Dana dreams of being a writer. In 1815, she is assumed a slave.
When Dana first meets Rufus on a Maryland plantation, he's drowning. She saves his life - and it will happen again and again.
Neither of them understands his power to summon her whenever his life is threatened, nor the significance of the ties that bind them.
And each time Dana saves him, the more aware she is that her own life might be over before it's even begun.
Octavia E. Butler's ground-breaking masterpiece is the extraordinary story of two people bound by blood, separated by so much more than time.

The combined mind-force of a telepathic race, Patternist thoughts can destroy, heal, rule. For the strongest mind commands the entire pattern and all within. Now the son of the Patternmaster craves this ultimate power, He has murdered or enslaved every threat to his ambition--except one. In the wild, mutant-infested hills, a young apprentice must be hunted down and destroyed because he is the tyrant's equal... and the Patternmaster's other son.

The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Octavia Butler tackles the creation of a new religion, the making of a god, and the ultimate fate of humanity in her Earthseed series, which began with Parable of the Sower , and now continues with Parable of the Talents . The saga began with the near-future dystopian tale of Sower , in which young Lauren Olamina began to realize her destiny as a leader of people dispossessed and destroyed by the crumbling of society. The basic principles of Lauren's faith, Earthseed, were contained in a collection of deceptively simple proverbs that Lauren used to recruit followers. She teaches that "God is change" and that humanity's ultimate destiny is among the stars.

In Parable of the Talents , the seeds of change that Lauren planted begin to bear fruit, but in unpredictable and brutal ways. Her small community is destroyed, her child is kidnapped, and she is imprisoned by sadistic zealots. She must find a way to escape and begin again, without family or friends. Her single-mindedness in teaching Earthseed may be her only chance to survive, but paradoxically, may cause the ultimate estrangement of her beloved daughter. Parable of the Talents is told from both mother's and daughter's perspectives, but it is the narrative of Lauren's grown daughter, who has seen her mother made into a deity of sorts, that is the most compelling. Butler's writing is simple and elegant, and her storytelling skills are superb, as usual. Fans will be eagerly awaiting the next installment in what promises to be a moving and adventurous saga. —Therese Littleton

Alternate Cover Edition can be found here .

When two immortals meet in the long-ago past, the destiny of mankind is changed forever

For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. He survives through the centuries by stealing the bodies of others, a technique he has so thoroughly mastered that nothing on Earth can kill him. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, ruining his grand experiment, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew.

He meets Anyanwu, a centuries-old woman whose means of immortality are as kind as his are cruel. She is a shapeshifter, capable of healing with a kiss, and she recognizes Doro as a tyrant. Though many humans have tried to kill them, these two demi-gods have never before met a rival. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries and permanently alter the nature of humanity.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

In her classic Patternist series, multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Octavia E. Butler established themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first time in one volume, these four novels take readers on a wondrous odyssey from a mythic, primordial past to a fantastic far future.

In ancient Africa, a female demigod of nurture and fertility mates with a powerful, destructive male entity. Together they birth a race of madmen, visionaries, and psychics who cling to civilization's margins and back alleys for millennia, coming together in a telepathic Pattern just as Earth is consumed by a cosmic invasion. Now these new beings -- no longer merely human -- will battle to rule the transfigured world.

Contents (including original publication dates):
Wild Seed (1980)
Mind of My Mind (1977)
Clay's Ark (1984)
Patternmaster (1976)

[Not included: Survivor (1978)]

Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth—the last stage of the planet’s final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien spacecraft piloted by the Oankali—who arrived just in time to save humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth. Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it was before.

The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Octavia E. Butler including rare images from the author’s estate.

Être aux pouvoirs sans limite, Doro est un esprit ancien qui engendre des humains sur lesquels régner. Sa puissance ne connaît pas d’égal, jusqu’à sa rencontre avec Anyanwu…

Entre amour et haine, Doro et Anyanwu se poursuivent à travers les continents et les siècles, dans une lutte de pouvoir, modifiant irrémédiablement ce que signifie être humain.

« En proposant une épopée fantastique aux influences d'Afrique de l'ouest, Octavia Butler nous plonge dans une aventure où même les dieux oubliés changent le futur des hommes. » Laura Nsafou

Ouverture de la saga Patternist, sa première œuvre, Mauvaise graine, inédit en France, est une véritable métaphore du combat séculaire des femmes noires contre les dominations, et rassemble et initie les thèmes de l’œuvre butlerienne à venir.

One woman is called upon to rebuild the future of humankind after a nuclear war, in this revelatory post-apocalyptic tale from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower.

When Lilith lyapo wakes from a centuries-long sleep, she finds herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali. She discovers that the Oankali—a seemingly benevolent alien race—intervened in the fate of the humanity hundreds of years ago, saving everyone who survived a nuclear war from a dying, ruined Earth and then putting them into a deep sleep. After learning all they could about Earth and its beings, the Oankali healed the planet, cured cancer, increased human strength, and they now want Lilith to lead her people back to Earth—but salvation comes at a price.

Hopeful and thought-provoking, this post-apocalyptic narrative deftly explores gender and race through the eyes of characters struggling to adapt during a pivotal time of crisis and change.

Selected by The Atlantic as one of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS.  ("You have to read them.")

The New York Times best-selling author’s time-travel classic that makes us feel the horrors of American slavery and indicts our country’s lack of progress on racial reconciliation

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

We are coming apart. We’re a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time.

America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to feel the pain of others as her own, records everything she sees of this broken world in her journal.

Then, one terrible night, everything alters beyond recognition, and Lauren must make her voice heard for the sake of those she loves.

Soon, her vision becomes reality and her dreams of a better way to live gain the power to change humanity forever.

All that you touch,
You Change.
All that you Change,
Changes you.

Lauren Olamina's love is divided among her young daughter, her community, and the revelation that led Lauren to found a new faith that teaches "God Is Change". But in the wake of environmental and economic chaos, the U.S. government turns a blind eye to violent bigots who consider the mere existence of a black female leader a threat. And soon Lauren must either sacrifice her child and her followers -- or forsake the religion that can transform human destiny.

A FICÇÃO DE OCTAVIA BUTLER É MAIS REAL DO QUE GOSTARÍAMOS

Lauren Olamina está casada e acaba de ter uma filha em Bolota, a comunidade que construiu com outras pessoas que haviam perdido tudo. Nos últimos cinco anos, Semente da Terra, a religião criada por Olamina cresce e se desenvolve junto com a comunidade. O país, porém, começa a passar por uma preocupante mudança.

O candidato à presidência Andrew Steele Jarret está ganhando popularidade com a promessa de “tornar a América grande novamente” em um retorno aos valores tradicionais e cristãos. Para seus fanáticos seguidores, isso exige o fim da tolerância religiosa e de qualquer igualdade racial e de gênero – e estão dispostos a impor sua doutrina com violência.

A segurança da pequena comunidade e da família nascente de Olamina nunca foi garantida. “Deus é mudança”, mas eles sobreviverão a mais uma?

Quando uma crise ambiental e econômica leva ao caos social, nem mesmo as cidades muradas estão seguras. Em uma noite de fogo e morte, Lauren Olamina, a jovem filha de um pastor, perde sua família, seu lar e se aventura pelas terras americanas desprotegidas. Mas o que começa como uma fuga pela sobrevivência acaba levando a algo muito maior: uma visão estonteante do destino humano.

E ao nascimento de uma nova fé.

In her classic Patternist series, multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Octavia E. Butler established themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first time in one volume, these four novels take readers on a wondrous odyssey from a mythic, primordial past to a fantastic far future.

In ancient Africa, a female demigod of nurture and fertility mates with a powerful, destructive male entity. Together they birth a race of madmen, visionaries, and psychics who cling to civilization's margins and back alleys for millennia, coming together in a telepathic Pattern just as Earth is consumed by a cosmic invasion. Now these new beings -- no longer merely human -- will battle to rule the transfigured world.

Contents (including original publication dates):
Wild Seed (1980)
Mind of My Mind (1977)
Clay's Ark (1984)
Patternmaster (1976)

[Not included: Survivor (1978)]

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.


Fiction.
Sister Lilith - Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
The Comet - W.E.B. Du Bois
Chicage 1927 - Jewelle Gomez
Black No More (novel excerpt) - George S. Schuyler
separation anxiety - Evie Shockley
Tasting Songs - Leone Ross
Can You Wear My Eyes - Kalamu ya Salaam
Like Daughter - Tananarive Due
Greedy Choke Puppy - Nalo Hopkinson
Rhythm Travel - Amiri Baraka
Buddy Bolden - Kalamu ya Salaam
Aye, and Gomorrah... - Samuel R. Delany
Ganger (Ball Lightning) - Nalo Hopkinson
The Becoming - Akua Lezli Hope
The Goophered Grapevine - Charles W. Chestnutt
The Evening and the Morning and the Night - Octavia E. Butler
Twice, at Once, Separated - Linda Addison
Gimmile's Songs - Charles R. Saunders
At the Huts of Ajala - Nisi Shawl
The Woman in the Wall - Steven Barnes
Ark of Bones - Henry Dumas
Butta's Backyard Barbecue - Tony Medina
Future Christmas (novel excerpt) - Ishmael Reed
At Life's Limits - Kiini Ibura Salaam
The African Origins of UFOs (novel excerpt) - Anthony Joseph
The Astral Visitor Delta Blues - Robert Fleming
The Space Traders - Derrick Bell
The Pretended - Darryl A. Smith
Hussy Strutt - Ama Patterson

Essays.
Racism and Science Fiction - Samuel R. Delany
Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction - Charles R. Saunders
Black to the Future - Walter Mosley
Yet Do I Wonder - Paul D. Miller
The Monophobic Response - Octavia E. Butler

2024. Le nouveau président des États-Unis provoque une crise sans précédent. Dérèglement social et climatique, épidémies, pauvreté, violences… Dans ce décor post-apocalyptique, la barbarie règne, les murs s’élèvent. La fille d’un pasteur noir atteinte d’hyper-empathie entame la rédaction d’une Bible d’espoir et d’humanité, Le Livre des Vivants.

UNE ANTICIPATION VISIONNAIRE

« Une grande dame de la SF, auteure américaine majeure ayant écrit sur la question noire et dont l’œuvre foisonnante déconstruit les mythes de la technologie, de la conquête et du pouvoir. »

Léa Mormin-Chauvac – Libération

Afro-américaine petite-fille d’esclaves, OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, deux fois lauréate du Prix Hugo de la nouvelle et du prix Nebula, est le premier écrivain de science-fiction honoré en 1995 du prix Génie de la Fondation Mac Arthur Grant pour son chef-d’œuvre des Paraboles du semeur et des talents. Elle est prématurément décédée en 2006 à Seattle, à 59 ans.