Octavia E. Butler Book summary

Octavia Butler was born on June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California. Her father who was a shoeshine died when Octavia was still very young. So she was raised by her mother, who worked as a maid for a living. Octavia was an avid reader from a very young age and had begun writing by the age of 12 when she first decided to write a better science fiction story after watching a B movie called Devil Girl from Mars.

Octavia decided to write Science fiction, a genre that predominantly consisted of white male writers. She was a critically acclaimed writer and won several accolades during her lifetime, some of the most prestigious being the Hugo award and the Nebula Award. She was the first author to be awarded the Macarthur fellowship and paved the way for many young black female authors. Her first book was called, Patternmaster, and was published in 1976. She became the protege to Harlan Ellison, an esteemed Science Fiction author after she met him in 1969 at the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwriters' Guild of America. She passed away in 2006.