Building a New Canon of Black Literature

3. Pioneers

IN SEPTEMBER 2020, Butler, the groundbreaking writer of Black speculative fiction, finally achieved her goal of making it onto the New York Times best-seller list. It came 14 years after her death. Butler’s eventual inclusion among the first rank of Black American authors is testament to a confluence of factors, especially the emergence of a community of Black women science fiction writers with literary capital — Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, Sheree . . .