Imago

Imago  
Octavia E. Butler 
New York: Warner Books, 1989 
Vanderbilt University Collection 
Vanderbilt University Special Collections

Imago is the third and final book in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis series. An alien species, the Oankali, have rescued humanity after a nuclear war and begun a long-term genetic merging project with them. The protagonist is the culmination of this project, a third sex unique to the Oankali, and struggles to understand this new identity, find human companionship, and balance the tension inherent in human-Oankali relations. The novel explores gender fluidity and queerness decades before these concepts were openly debated. Butler’s groundbreaking work is one of the earliest literary examples of Afrofuturism and blends post-apocalyptic survival with themes of colonialism, race and biological interdependence.