Spring 2013
Earthseed: The Books of the
Living
The Parable of the Sower
By Lauren Oya Olamina
;
Lorem Ipsum Dolor
Spring 2016
The Parable of the Sower
Earthseed is a fictional religion based on the idea that “God is Change.”
Created by Octavia Butler, this story is told by the main character Lauren
Oya Olamina in both of her books: Parable of the
Sower and Parable of the
Talents. There was supposed to be a third book to this trilogy series,
Parable of the Trickster, but
Butler was unable to complete it before her untimely death.
Company town- a town or city in which much or all real estate, buildings, utilities, hospitals, small businesses, and other necessities or luxuries of life within its boarders are owned by a single operation.
Hyper empathy- the ability to explore the mental state of others at an unusually accurate and sensitive degree. Parable of the Sower is a futuristic, science-fiction novel where the United
States has been dismantled into city-states, the government has been demolished, and the economy is becoming reborn as company towns.
The main character in
Parable of the Sower, Lauren
Olamina, is the daughter of a Baptist minister (who serves their walled-in neighborhood) and a drugaddicted mother (who because of her excessive encounters to prescription drugs) birthed a premature
Olamina suffering from hyper empathy. When seventeen-year old
Olamina’s community is attacked, burned, and looted, she barely escapes with her life, and travels, at great danger, into northern
California in search of a haven where she and others can build the first Earthseed community. The beliefs of
Earthseed are recorded in the fictional book Earthseed:
The Books of the Living.
Olamina "writes" in short, poetic passages. Portions of this text are presented at the beginning of each section, some chapters, and occasionally throughout the text. The philosophy of