Parable of the Sower (novel)

Parable of the Soweris a 1993speculative fictionnovel by American writerOctavia E. Butler. It is set in apost-apocalypticEarth heavily affected byclimate changeandsocial inequality.The novel follows Lauren Olamina, a young woman who can feel the pain of others and becomes displaced from her home. Several characters from various walks of life join her on her journey north and learn of a religion she has envisioned and titledEarthseed. The main tenets of Earthseed are that "God is Change" and believers can "shape God" through conscious effort to influence the changes around them. Earthseed also teaches that it is humanity's destiny to inhabit other planets and spread the "seeds" of the Earth.
Parable of the Sowerwas the winner of multiple awards, including the 1994New York TimesNotable Book of the Year, and has been adapted into an opera and a graphic novel.Parable of the Sowerhas influenced music and essays on social justice as well asclimate change. In 2021, it was picked by readers of theNew York Timesas the top science fiction nomination for the best book of the last 125 years.
Parable of the Soweris the first in an unfinished series of novels, followed byParable of the Talentsin 1998.
Beginning in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growingwealth inequality, and corporate greed,Parable of the Sowertakes the form of a journal kept by Lauren Oya Olamina, an African American teenager. Her mother abused drugs during her pregnancy and left Lauren with "hyper-empathy" or "sharing": the uncontrollable ability to feel the sensations she witnesses in others, particularly the abundant pain in her world.
Lauren grows up in the remnants of agated communityin Robledo, California, twenty miles from Los Angeles, where she and her neighbors struggle but are separate from the abject poverty of the world outside. Outside of the community are numerous homeless and mutilated individuals who resent the community members for their relative affluence. Public services such as police or firefighters are untrustworthy, exploiting their positions for profit and making little effort to help. Lauren's father, a Baptist pastor and college professor, holds the community together through Baptist religion, mutual aid, and careful use of resources, such as making bread fromacorns. However, Lauren is increasingly certain that despite all efforts, society will continue to deteriorate and the community will no longer be safe; Lauren secretly prepares to travel north, as many do in search of rare paid jobs. The newly elected radical, authoritarian President Donner loosens labor protections, creating a rise incompany townsowned by foreign businesses. Lauren privately develops her own new belief system based on the belief that "God is Change" is the only lasting truth, and that humanity should "shape God" in order to aid themselves. She comes to call this religionEarthseed.
Lauren's younger half-brother, Keith, rebelliously runs away to live outside the walls of the community. For a time, he survives by joining a group of ruthless thieves who value him for his rare literacy, but he is eventually found dead after torture. Later, Lauren's father disappears while leaving the community for work and is accepted as dead.
In 2027, when Lauren is eighteen, the community's security is breached in an organized attack by outsiders: most of the community is destroyed, looted, and murdered, including Lauren's family. She travels north, disguised as a man, with Harry Balter and Zahra Moss, two survivors from her community. Society outside the community walls has reverted to chaos due to resource scarcity and poverty. U.S. states have become akin to city-states with strict borders. Money still has value, but travelers constantly fear attacks for resources or bypyromaniacdrug-users, cannibals, and wild dogs. Interracial relationships are stigmatized, women fear sexual assault, and slavery has returned in the form ofindentured servitude.
Lauren gathers people to protect along her journey and begins to share the Earthseed religion, which is developing into a collection of texts titledEarthseed: The Books of the Living. She believes that humankind's destiny is to travel beyond the deteriorating Earth and live on other planets, forcing humankind into its adulthood, and that Earthseed is preparation for this destiny. Lauren begins a relationship with Bankole, an older doctor who joins the group, and agrees to marry him. Bankole takes the group to the land he owns in northern California, where the group settles and Lauren founds the first Earthseed community, Acorn.
The novel concludes with an excerpt from the BiblicalParable of the Sower.
The sequel toParable of the Sower,Parable of the Talents, was published in 1998.
Butler began to write a thirdParablenovel, tentatively titledParable of the Trickster, which would have focused on an Earthseed community's struggle to survive on a new planet. Along with the third novel, Butler was planning several others titledParable of the Teacher, Parable of Chaos,andParable of Clay.She beganParable of the Tricksterafter finishingParable of the Talents, and mentioned her work on it in a number of interviews, but at some point encounteredwriter's block. She eventually shifted her creative attention, resulting inFledgling(2005), her final novel. The various false starts for the novel can now be found among Butler's papers at theHuntington Library, as described in an article at theLos Angeles Review of Books.Butler died in 2006, leaving the series unfinished.
Published by Four Walls Eight Windows in 1993, by Women's Press Ltd. in 1995, byWarnerin 1995 and 2000, and bySeven Stories Pressin 2017.
Parable of the Sowerwas adapted into an opera by American folk/blues musicianToshi Reagonin collaboration with her mother, singer and composerBernice Johnson Reagon. The adaptation's libretto and musical score combine African-Americanspirituals,soul,rock and roll, andfolk music. An early concert version of the opera was performed as part ofThe Public Theater'sUnder the Radar Festivalin New York City in 2015.The finished version had its world premiere inAbu Dhabiin November 2017 and has been performed inBoston,New York City,Los Angeles,Singapore,Amsterdam, and elsewhere.
In 2020,Parable of the Sowerwas adapted into agraphic novelby Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the team which had previously adapted Butler's novelKindred, and published byAbrams ComicArts. The graphic novel was named to the Black Lives Matter Reading Lists compiled by theGraphic Novels & Comics Round Tableand theBlack Caucus of the American Library Association.It went on to win the 2021Ignyte Awardfor Best Comics Team and the 2021Hugo AwardforBest Graphic Story.
In 2015,Adrienne Maree BrownandWalidah Imarishaco-editedOctavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, a collection of 20 short stories and essays about social justice inspired by Butler.In June 2020, Brown andToshi Reagonbegan hosting the podcastOctavia's Parables, which gives an in-depth dive intoParable of the SowerandParable of the Talents.