Young people who have read Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel say it’s not only prescient, but also carries lessons for today.
Imminent drought, rising sea waters, destructive borders, a vanishing middle class, “smart drugs,” Big Pharma, privatized public schools and cities, and a governing body with the slogan “Make America Great Again.” These are all themes from Octavia Butler’s postapocalyptic novel Parable of the Sower.
Published in 1993 and set in 2024—the protagonist’s first journal entry is July 20, 2024—the story imagines a highly capitalistic America, dominated by industry, corporate greed, and impending doom. At the time of its publication, the novel was categorized as dystopian fiction with a climate catastrophe twist, but Butler later self-labeled it as “speculative fiction.”
As our calendars finally catch up to the timeline of her imagination, Butler seems to have predicted many realities…