National Public Radio's Throughline series examines current events through their historical context. And the upcoming episode focuses on someone whose fiction foretold much of our world today: the incomparable Afrofuturist author Octavia E. Butler.
The Portalist is pleased to share a sneak peek in advance of tomorrow's episode — an excerpt of an essay written by Throughline co-host Ramtin Arablouei! Take a look below, then keep reading to learn how to catch the full episode.
"It was middle school, eighth grade, when a sheltered 13-year-old boy suddenly found himself immersed in an unfamiliar world, guided by a girl who wasn’t much older, a girl on the verge of leading a religious movement.
At first glance it might appear that all they had in common was age, but there was more. They were both growing up in religious households — she a Baptist in a walled community outside of Los Angeles, he a Muslim in suburban Maryland. And they shared a burning desire to understand the constantly evolving, confusing world they occupied.
The boy was me. The girl, Lauren Oya Olamina is, of course, the main character in Octavia Butler’s classic science fiction novel, Parable of the Sower. We were introduced by an adventurous middle school English teacher, who assigned the book to my class.
In Butler’s dystopian world, a strongman has risen to power in the United States, and climate change is decimating the environment. The economy is falling apart. Income inequality is out of control. Resources are scarce, and violence has forced people to isolate. The year is 2024.
Lauren was born with a disorder that makes her feel extreme empathy. She feels everyone’s pain. It exhausts her. As a sensitive teen myself, I felt I understood Lauren. And I felt connected to the author who created her.
I have found myself returning to Parable of the Sower and Butler’s other writings many times over the years to help make sense of things, to find in her stories lessons to guide my own life. And in 2016, a year of significant change in the world and my life, as I entered fatherhood and embarked on an entirely new career, I reached with more urgency for Parable of the Sower. "
Want more? Throughline's Octavia Butler episode will air at 12:01 AM EST on Thursday, February 18th. Once it's released, you can listen to the episode here.
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Octavia Butler
Photo Credit: Patti Perret, 1986. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Throughline is hosted by Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah. Each episode, the pair look to the past to understand the present, which makes Butler's prescient work an ideal topic.
Throughout her bibliography, Butler explored themes of identity, hierarchy, race, and transformation. Her Earthseed duology, which includes the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, became a New York Times bestseller for the first time in 2020, as readers turned to the novels for comfort and guidance during the pandemic and election cycle.
RELATED: In This Era of Change, We Must Manifest Octavia Butler's Earthseed
Tune into Throughline this Thursday the 18th to explore the enduring worlds of Octavia Butler! In the meantime, explore more of Butler's work below.
