Parable of the Sower
In 2024 California, fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives behind the walls of a shrinking Los Angeles suburb where her preacher father still holds services, even as water shortages, wage-slave company towns, and drug-addicted scavengers close in. Afflicted with hyperempathy, a syndrome that forces her to feel the pain she causes and witnesses, she begins building Earthseed, her own new religion, in a journal she keeps in secret. When the walls finally fall, she leads a tiny community north along Highway 101, and Octavia Butler turns the road into a laboratory for the theology her protagonist is inventing in real time.
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What you might want to know about Parable of the Sower
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In a 2020s California of walled enclaves and burning towns, fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina feels other people's pain in her own body and starts writing a religion called Earthseed in her notebooks.
Octavia Butler completed two Parable novels: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. She planned more but did not complete a third before her death in 2006.
Yes. A graphic novel adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings was published in 2020. A film or TV adaptation has been in development for years; as of 2025 the project remains active.
Parable of the Sower was written by Octavia Butler, published in 1993 by Grand Central Publishing.
Parable of the Sower is 328 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Parable of the Sower takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Parable of the Sower is a standalone novel by Octavia Butler, not part of a series.
Parable of the Sower is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
