Parable of the Talents : the extraordinary sequel to the bestselling modern classic, Parable of the Sower

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 STEINEMIn 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’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