Parable of the Talents
On sale
4th June 2026
Price: £10.99
A stunning new contemporary edition of Octavia E. Butler’s award-winning sequel to Parable of the Sower. With an introduction by Akwaeke Emezi.
‘Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans’ GLORIA STEINEM
To understand who I am, I must begin to understand who she was.
There are many things Asha needs to know. How her country could embrace a presidential reign of terror and oppression, why the people turned a blind eye to the suffering – and the truth about her mother.
Reading the journals of Lauren Olamina, the mother she barely knew, Asha struggles to reconcile herself to the legacy of a woman caught between love for her daughter and her calling to lead humanity to a better future.
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Praise for Octavia E. Butler
‘Unnervingly prescient and wise’ YAA GYASI
‘Butler’s prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision’ GUARDIAN
‘One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had’ JUNOT DIAZ
‘Butler’s evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘An icon of the Afrofuturism world, envisioning literary realms that placed black characters front and center’ VANITY FAIR
‘Octavia Butler was a visionary’ VIOLA DAVIS
‘Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans’ GLORIA STEINEM
To understand who I am, I must begin to understand who she was.
There are many things Asha needs to know. How her country could embrace a presidential reign of terror and oppression, why the people turned a blind eye to the suffering – and the truth about her mother.
Reading the journals of Lauren Olamina, the mother she barely knew, Asha struggles to reconcile herself to the legacy of a woman caught between love for her daughter and her calling to lead humanity to a better future.
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Praise for Octavia E. Butler
‘Unnervingly prescient and wise’ YAA GYASI
‘Butler’s prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision’ GUARDIAN
‘One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century. One cannot exaggerate the impact she has had’ JUNOT DIAZ
‘Butler’s evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘An icon of the Afrofuturism world, envisioning literary realms that placed black characters front and center’ VANITY FAIR
‘Octavia Butler was a visionary’ VIOLA DAVIS