Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

Parable of the Sower

Author: Octavia E. Butler

Narrator: Anika Noni Rose

Unabridged: 12 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/14/2026

Synopsis

From a celebrated, award-winning author, a modern classic about a young girl fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, perfect for fans of N.K. Jemisin and Margaret Atwood. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding social chaos and anarchy caused by climate change and economic crisis. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy—a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions.

Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny. Includes a foreword by LeVar Burton and an afterword by N. K. Jemisin Lauren's story continues in The Parable of the Talents. 

"In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."—The New Yorker
 

About Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, one of very few African American women in the field. She won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and in 1995 was the first science fiction writer ever to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant.

Reviews

There are currently no user reviews for this audiobook.

Quotes

"A brilliant, endlessly rich dystopian novel that pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale, and it's also a fascinating exploration of how crises can fuel new religious and ideological movements."—John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down, New York Times

"Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower is a stunner. It's a terrifying vision of a dismal future brought on by the willful ignorance, racism and greed of human beings, and an eerily dangerous parallel to our present path. Ms. Butler gives us a satisfying protagonist in the hypersensitive teenager Lauren, whose courage and wits are an infinite source of inspiration."—Flea, Wall Street Journal

"Butler felt to me like a lighthouse blinking from an island of understanding way out at sea. I had no idea how to get there, but I knew she had found something life-saving. She had found a form of resistance. Butler and other writers like Ursula Le Guin, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood...used the tenets of genre to reveal the injustices of the present and imagine our evolution."—Brit Marling, New York Times

"In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."—New Yorker

"A gripping tale of survival and a poignant account of growing up sane in a disintegrating world."—New York Times Book Review

"One of the most important and groundbreaking science-fiction authors."—Entertainment Weekly

"A powerful story of hope and faith."—Denver Post

"There isn't a page in this vivid and frightening story that fails to grip the reader."—San Jose Mercury News

"Artfully conceived and elegantly written . . . Butler's success in making Lauren's subsequent odyssey feel real is only the most obvious measure of this fine novel's worth."—Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A real gut-wrencher . . . What makes Butler's fiction compelling is that it is as crisply detailed as journalism. . . Often the smallest details are the most revelatory."—Washington Post

Pre-Order
Add to Wish List