Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Hobbies, Leisure, Books, Arts

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode features a live recording made at Foyles in London, where John was joined on stage by Una McCormack, making her record breaking tenth appearance on Backlsited, and Salena Godden, who returns eight years after blowing us away in the episode on Hubert Selby Jr. The book under discussion is The Parable of the Sower a 1993 novel by the American science fiction writer, Octavia Butler. For those of you don’t know her work, you are in for a roller coaster ride. As fellow American novelist Junot Diaz has written, Butler is ‘one of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century.’ This episode examines what makes her so important and why her reputation has taken time to establish itself, particularly in the UK. The novel is set in a superficially familiar California, a place that is rapidly descending into violence and mob rule, and is told through the eyes of Lauren Olamina, a teenage girl who has the ability to feel the pain of others as her own. The discussion covers the themes of religion and its uses in the novel, and the disfiguring legacy of slavery that Butler’s work constantly returns to. It provides an excellent introduction to the work of a writer whose books become more relevant with each passing year. An extended bonus episode on Parable of the Sower will be available on 12/10/25 for our Patrons on the Locklisted level - www.patreon.com/backlisted *For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted *Tickets are now on sale for our next live show in London where we will be discussing Round The Fire Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle on 23/10/2025 * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Batlisted is brought to you by serious readers, a reading lamp for people like you and me.
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0:47.0	So without further ado, lights out for the podcast podcast.
0:53.0	Hello and welcome to be
0:59.0	and welcome to Batristin,
1:01.0	the podcast which gives new life to old books.
1:05.0	Today you find us back at Foyles and Chancrode for the first of our series of autumn live recordings.
1:14.0	And although we're sitting comfortably in a warm and beautifully
1:18.0	in a warm and beautifully appointed modern bookshop,
1:21.0	soon we're going to find ourselves immersed in an alternative version of California in an
1:26.4	imagined 2024 as we enter the strange and violent world of the Parable of the Soa 1993 novel by the American writer
1:36.8	Octavia Butler. Some introductions are and John Mitchinson publisher of Unbound where
	...

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