Title: Parable of the Sower
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Genre: Modern Classic
ISBN: 978-1035410088
Publisher: Headline
Publication Date: 1993
Publisher Description: We are coming apart. We're a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time.
America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to feel the pain of others as her own, records everything she sees of this broken world in her journal.
Then, one terrible night, everything alters beyond recognition, and Lauren must make her voice heard for the sake of those she loves. Soon, her vision becomes reality and her dreams of a better way to live gain the power to change humanity forever.
Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the renowned author of numerous ground-breaking novels, including Kindred, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. Recipient of the Locus, Hugo and Nebula awards, and a PEN Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work, in 1995 she became the first science-fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship 'genius grant'. A pioneer of her genre, Octavia's dystopian novels explore myriad themes of Black injustice, women's rights, global warming and political and economic disparity, and her work is taught in over two hundred colleges and universities nationwide. In 2020, Octavia E. Butler became a New York Times bestselling author.
Literary Atelier Review: This novel was selected as part of the book club I lead in my local bookshop. Though I had of course heard about Octavia E. Butler's legendary literary output, as someone who rarely reads future set novels I had not been drawn to it. Happily books club obligations led me to have to read this incredible novel and it will never leave me.
Butler's depiction of an America in dystopian free fall is terrifying in its accuracy. There was something particularly exciting and frightening about reading this novel in 2024 as that is when it was set, though Butler wrote it the novel in the early 1990s. Having come to the book through another person's recommendation I was so affected by it that I now plan to read book two in the series and hopefully many other books from Octavia E. Butler in the future.