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Parable of the Sower

On sale

27th March 2014

Price: £5.49

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Selected: ebook / ISBN-13: 9781472214775

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The extraordinary, prescient NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling novel.

‘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

‘Unnervingly prescient and wise’ YAA GYASI



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.


PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

‘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

‘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

Reviews

Junot Diaz
One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had
Guardian
Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision
New York Times
[Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human
The Pool
No novel I've read this year has felt as relevant, as gut-wrenching or as essential... If you've ever tweeted "All Lives Matter", someone needs to shove Kindred into your hand, and quickly
Harlan Ellison
Kindred is that rare magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
One cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art
BBC
[A] must-read novel
Refinery 29
Everyone should read at least one novel by the grand dame of science fiction, and Kindred is a perfect (and harrowing and disturbing and brilliant) place to start
Tor
The immediate effect of reading Octavia Butler's Kindred is to make every other time travel book in the world look as if it's wimping out... This is a brilliant book, utterly absorbing, very well written, and deeply distressing. It's very hard to read, not because it's not good but because it's so good
Kirkus
A searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun
Los Angeles Times
One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
If you haven't read Butler, you don't yet understand how rich the possibilities of science fiction can be
Village Voice
Butler's books are exceptional
Cory Doctorow
Few writers in our field are so good at blending page-turners with philosophical questions so seamlessly
Independent
A dark, compelling and still horribly resonant time travel story
Starburst
Impossible to turn away from once you've devoured the first few pages