Birthday Reviews: Joanna Russ’s “Nobody’s Home”
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Cover by Ron Walotsky
Joanna Russ was born on February 22, 1937 and died on April 29, 2011. From her first publications, she became a voice for feminist science fiction in a world which was dominated, but not exclusively, by men.
As important as her science fiction, if not moreso, is her monograph How to Suppress Women’s Writing. Among her notable science fiction are the stories that make of the Alyx cycle, including Picnic on Paradise, and the novels And Chaos Died and The Female Man.
She won the Nebula Award for her short story “When It Changed” and a Hugo for the novella “Souls.” In 1996, she received two retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Awards for “When It Changed” and for The Female Man. The Female Man was inducted into the Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame. Russ received a Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Achievement for her contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship from the SFRA in 1988 and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2015, Russ received the Solstice Award from the SFWA.
“Nobody’s Home” was originally printed in New Dimensions II, edited by Robert Silverberg in 1972. It was picked up the next year by Terry Carr for The Best Science Fiction of the Year #2. Pamela Sargent included it in Women of Wonder. Silverberg has reprinted it in several of his anthologies over the years, including Alpha 9, The Best of New Dimensions, Great Tales of Science Fiction, and The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction. Russ included it in her collection The Zanzibar Cat in 1983. David G. Hartwell reprinted it in The World Treasury of Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois reprinted it in Modern Classics of Science Fiction and Supermen. “Nobody’s Home” was translated into Spanish in 1977 and into Dutch in 1980.