“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia E. Butler

Image of the book Parable of the Sower lying atop a wooden table.

Parable of the Sower is a classic 1993 science fiction novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler, a Black sci-fi writer. This dystopian fictional novel centers on the story of Lauren Oya Olamina who navigates survival in a world where society has largely collapsed due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed.

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About Parable of the Sower

Although Parable of the Sower was released in 1993, many have revisited the novel over the past few years for its uncanny resemblance to issues today. Set in the 2020s, the novel portrays the dystopian U.S. that’s crippled because of climate change and corporate greed. Residents live in vast wealth inequity, slavery has been reintroduced, and a Christian sect has taken control, purging the country of non-believers. A conservative leader running for office uses the campaign message “Make America Great Again.” Liberation is imagined by the main character, a young Black woman with hyperempathetic powers. This is the first in a two-part series; Parable of the Talents was published as a sequel in 1998. A third story in the series was concepted, but never completed.

About Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler was the first Black female science fiction writer to reach national prominence, and the only writer in her genre to receive a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (NPR). She decided to make writing her life's work around the age of 10. Born in 1947 in Pasadena, California, she would wake up very early to make time for writing before working a series of jobs to sustain herself. Her first novel, Patternmaster (1976), would ultimately become one of the installments in the four-volume Patternist series. Butler went on to write several other novels, including Kindred (1979) as well as Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), and the Bloodchild series (1995) (NYTimes).

Although Butler’s work has always been celebrated in contrast to the white space, she has always emphasized that she writes for Black people:

"
When I began writing science fiction, when I began reading, heck, I wasn't in any of this stuff I read. The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing.

Octavia Butler to the NYTimes

Many white sci-fi writers throughout our history were known to be outwardly racist, and stories from them and others perpetuate anti-Blackness and promote white supremacy in their fictional futures (New York Review of Science Fiction). Beyond this, the mainstream sci-fi genre is dominated by white male writers. And that trend continues to this day. Fireside Fiction’s report, #BlackSpecFic, found that less than 2% of SF stories published in 2015 were by black writers (The Guardian). Many Black writers have chosen instead to self-publish or create our own publication companies to preserve and celebrate our work.

The work of Octavia E. Butler has inspired some of the most critical works of this generation. adrienne marie brown, Black feminist author, doula and activist, has published several texts inspired, in part, by the work of Octavia E. Butler, including Pleasure Activism, Emergent Strategy, and We Will Not Cancel Us. She also co-published the Octavia Butler Strategic Reader with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and runs the podcast “Octavia's Parable‪s‬” with Toshi Reagon, a musician who created a rock opera based on Parable of the Sower (Allied Media).

Butler received multiple Hugo and Nebula awards for her work. In 1995, she became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. She died of a stroke in 2006 at the age of 58.

Reflection Questions

• Which fictional stories have inspired you throughout your lifetime? What lens of society did they illuminate?
• What books have you read by non-white authors that aren't issue books?

Learn More

• Read how Octavia E. Butler predicted the future in this longread by the NYTimes.
• Read “Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements” by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha (Bookshop)
• Read “A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia Butler” by Lynell George (Esowan Bookstore)
• Watch “Octavia Wrote Her Own Future” which examines the notes and affirmations Butler drafted for herself throughout her career (YouTube)
• Read more about the importance of diversifying your bookshelf in a previous issue of the Anti-Racism Daily.