“Childfinder”

2014 Butler, Octavia E[stelle] (1947-2006). “Childfinder.” In her Unexpected Stories. New York: Open Road, with a “Foreword” by Walter Mosley, an “Afterword by Merrilee Heifetz, and “A Biography of Octavia E. Butler.” Rpt. (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2020), 27-92, with an “Afterword” by Butler on 93, with a “Foreword: Necessary Stories” by Nisi Shawl (7-10) and an “Afterword by Merrilee Heifetz (95-97) (PSt copy is No. 894 of 1000 copies); and in Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories. Ed. Gerry Canavan & Nisi Shawl (New York: Library of America, 2021), 577-587, with a Chronology (743-755), a Note on the Text (758-759), and Notes (771). The story was intended for Harlan Ellison’s unpublished Last Dangerous Visions.

The story has a brief introductory statement that “Psi could have put the human race on the road to utopia,” but the dystopian story is about racial prejudice among the psi. African American female author.