A summary of Octavia E. Butler's life by Félix Babin, Gabriel Derrien, Blanche Morin, Marguerite Lamy and Guillaume Jacques.

                                                          Octavia E. Butler

Born in Pasadena, California on the 22nd of June 1947, Octavia Estelle Butler was a famous writer back in the late 70s and early 80s. She was the daughter of Laurice James Butler and Octavia Margaret Guy Butler. Unfortunately, her father died when she was seven years old, and she was raised by her mother and her grandmother. She discovered her passion for science fiction after watching one of David MacDonald’s movies, which was Devil Girl from Mars. Science fiction then became the inspiration of all of her novels. She became successful in 1979 after publishing her fourth book out of the fifteen she wrote, entitled Kindred.

She went to John Muir High School then went to Pasadena City College, but she was only doing night classes, and she graduated with an associate of arts degree. In school, she was known to be shy, awkward and she spent most of her time at the Pasadena Central Library.

Octavia E. Butler was especially known for her writing, but she has also received a lot of different prizes. Most of her prizes were to award her for her amazing science fiction writing. She also won the MacArthur Foundation’s Fellowship, which was given to authors with financial difficulties. All those awards pushed her to keep improving her writing. 

She was an important person because she spent a lot of her time defending black people’s rights by exposing their reality to the world throughout her books. She successfully included slavery as a main theme in her stories, for the purpose of defending the rights of slaves. We can say her actions helped the case and condition of black people by making her readers think.

To end with an impactful fact, the most special thing about her is that one of her quotes predicted her own future. She became even more famous after her death. Her most famous quote is: 

 

“In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.”

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler#Rise_to_success

https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-1995/octavia-butler

https://www.sfadb.com/Octavia_E_Butler