Parable of the Talents
On sale
20th August 2019
Price: £9.99
The stunning sequel to Parable of the Sower, the NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling novel.
‘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
—
In order for me to understand who I am, I must begin to understand who she was.
Asha was born into a broken world. There are many things she needs to know: how her country could embrace a violent, far-right President promising to make America great again, why they turned a blind eye to the suffering – and the truth about her mother.
In her journals, Lauren Olamina tells of a great love divided between her young daughter, her community and the revelation that led her to found a new faith that teaches ‘God Is Change’. But under a tyrannical religious regime who consider the mere existence of a black female leader a threat, Lauren knows she must soon either sacrifice her daughter and her followers – or forsake the beliefs that could transform human destiny.
PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
‘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
‘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
—
In order for me to understand who I am, I must begin to understand who she was.
Asha was born into a broken world. There are many things she needs to know: how her country could embrace a violent, far-right President promising to make America great again, why they turned a blind eye to the suffering – and the truth about her mother.
In her journals, Lauren Olamina tells of a great love divided between her young daughter, her community and the revelation that led her to found a new faith that teaches ‘God Is Change’. But under a tyrannical religious regime who consider the mere existence of a black female leader a threat, Lauren knows she must soon either sacrifice her daughter and her followers – or forsake the beliefs that could transform human destiny.
PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
‘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
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Reviews
One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had
Butler's prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision
[Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human
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
Kindred is that rare magical artifact . . . the novel one returns to, again and again
One cannot finish Kindred without feeling changed. It is a shattering work of art
[A] must-read novel
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
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
A searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun
One of the most original, thought-provoking works examining race and identity
If you haven't read Butler, you don't yet understand how rich the possibilities of science fiction can be
Butler's books are exceptional
Few writers in our field are so good at blending page-turners with philosophical questions so seamlessly
A dark, compelling and still horribly resonant time travel story
Impossible to turn away from once you've devoured the first few pages