"Speech Sounds"

1983 Butler, Octavia E[stelle] (1947-2006). “Speech Sounds.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 7.13 (73) (Mid-December 1983): 26-40. Rpt. in The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Fiction 1960-1990. Ed. Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993), 513-24; in New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow. Ed. Janrae Frank, Jean Stine, & Forrest J. Ackerman (Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press, 1994), 337-47 with an editors’ note on 336; in her Bloodchild and Other Stories (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995), 87-110 with an “Afterword” on 109-10; in A Woman’s Liberation: A Choice of Futures By and About Women. Ed. Connie Willis and Sheila Williams (New York: Warner Books, 2001), 185-200; in Feminist Philosophy and Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias. Ed. Judith A. Little (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), 185-97; in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2008), 245-55; and in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 566-79 with an editors’ note on 566-67.

Dystopia of the loss of the ability to communicate and the resulting violence. Those who can speak and write must keep it secret. African-American female author.