Description: " The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler is compelling overview of the work of this vital writer. Equally attentive to her contributions to speculative fiction, African American studies, and theoretical work concerns with social justice, the essays collected here attest to Butler's complexity and range. Bookended by two personal reflections from Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due, important authors themselves, it further provides a glimpse of the thoughtful person behind the powerful fiction. The Bloomsbury Handbook offers new insights into Butler's most discussed fiction, such as her Xenogenesis trilogy and Parables novels, and brings needed critical attention to the entire body of her work, including the out-of-print novel Survivor and unpublished material now available in archival papers. An indispensable overview of Butler's status as one of the most important novelists of her era, this Handbook brings together essays from an impressive range of disciplinary frameworks-literature, neuroscience, biopolitics, disability studies, posthumanist theory, fan studies, postcolonial theory, and visual arts. The volume includes reflections on the challenges and promises of teaching Butler's fiction in undergraduate classrooms and ones that engage how Butler's ideas have become foundational for ongoing work in antiracist activism. This fascinating collection makes clear that Butler speaks both to her own time and to ours. In both Butler's fiction and in the scholarship assembled her, hope shines through even as the works clear-sightedly address the darkness of our world." -- Sherryl Vint, Director of the Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science program, University of California, Riverside, USA

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