Parable of the Talents

From the celebrated author, the thrilling sequel to Parable of the Sower - an extraordinary novel ahead of its time. 'In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time... for sheer peculiar prescience, Butler's novel may be unmatched' NEW YORKER 'Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans. I think she can help each of us to do the same' GLORIA STEINEM To understand who I am, I must begin to understand who she was. There are many things Asha needs to know. How her country could embrace a presidential reign of terror and oppression, why the people turned a blind eye to the suffering - and the truth about her mother. Reading the journals of Lauren Olamina, the mother she barely knew, Asha struggles to reconcile herself to the legacy of a woman caught between love for her daughter and her calling to lead humanity to a better future. PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER 'Unnervingly prescient and wise' YAA GYASI 'If there is one thing scarier than a dystopian novel about the future, it's one written in the past that has already begun to come true. This is what makes Parable of the Sower even more impressive than it was when first published' GLORIA STEINEM 'Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision' GUARDIAN 'Octavia Butler was a visionary' VIOLA DAVIS 'One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had' JUNOT DIAZ 'An icon of the Afrofuturism world, envisioning literary realms that placed black characters front and center' VANITY FAIR 'Butler writes with such a familiarity that the alien is welcome and intriguing. She really artfully exposes our human impulse to self-destruct' LUPITA NYONG'O

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.