Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel accurately imagined the world in 2024

At least, that’s how life was imagined in 2024 by author Octavia Butler 31 years ago.

The 1993 novel “Parable of the Sower” by the late science fiction author and MacArthur Fellow depicts a future America devastated by ecological collapse and social unrest. The book’s narrator, African American teenager Lauren Olamina, begins writing a diary documenting the chaos of July 2024.

By the time we actually reach 2024, Butler’s story has been adapted into an opera and a graphic novel. A movie version is also in the works. In 2017, director Melina Matsoukas cited Butler as one of the Black thinkers who inspired Beyoncé’s award-winning “Formation” video from her album Lemonade.

In September 2020, Parable appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time 27 years after its publication, perhaps fueled by the interest in apocalypse novels spurred by the coronavirus lockdown.

Butler didn’t live to see her ninth novel return to prominence (she died in 2006), but the characters in Fables and the problems facing America today are inescapable. He said no.

He spoke in a radio interview on “Democracy Now!” Three months before his death, Butler said the world of “Parable” was about “what would happen if we painlessly fixed some of the problems we’re creating for ourselves right now.” He said it was a thing. Global warming is one of those problems. ”

It is a subject on which her novels are very prescient. The main character, Lauren, finds herself in 2024 “people changing the world’s climate” and blindly “waiting for the old days to return.”

She explains that floods, droughts, and storms “ricocheted up and down the Gulf Coast, killing people from Florida to Texas to Mexico,” claiming the lives of 700 Americans. The storm bears an uncanny resemblance to Hurricane Michael, which made landfall in Florida in 2018 and was the first Category 5 cyclone to make landfall in Florida in nearly 30 years, echoing scenes of weather-induced crop destruction in the book. It cost agriculture $1.5 billion.

Seeking refuge from an unstable climate and growing lawlessness, the future inhabitants of “Parable” took up arms and took refuge in the “walled land.” Lauren’s family is based in Robredo, 32 miles from Los Angeles, which is described in the book as “once a rich, green, small, unwalled city.” In 2024, defenses have been strengthened against outsiders who would plunder them.

We’re not quite in this dystopia yet, but there’s a boom in gated communities. By 2009, a reported 11 million Americans chose to live behind walls. Six years later, that number had increased to 15 million. Gated communities now offer security measures ranging from surveillance systems to 24/7 armed guards.

In Fable, one of the reasons why so many people choose to lay low is distrust of the police. In Lauren’s world, law enforcement is semi-privatized, and police officers collect fees when they respond to crimes.

Police appear to be offering little help to customers who fear criminals are trying to destroy the gated community. This police indifference was written by Butler as a “critique of the neo-conservative attack on the welfare state” and was a reflection of the unrest that followed the 1992 arrest of Rodney King and the acquittal of police officers for assault. The move may reflect widespread criticism of the police. Los Angeles, the city of Butler.

In the real world, the number of private armies is on the rise. Last year, the New York Times reported that most major U.S. cities have at least three times as many security guards as there are police officers on the streets.

There is also a great deal of distrust towards the police. In July 2020, as protests against police violence continued across the United States after the killing of George Floyd, Pew Research Center believes police use appropriate force and treat racial groups equally. They found that only about a third of Americans do, which is a significant decrease from four years ago.

“Parable” political leaders try to address social unrest by promising a massive reset. Presidential candidate Christopher Donner will put people back to work immediately after his inauguration, saying he will end “worker protection laws” for employers who are prepared to accept and train a workforce made up of vagrants. declared.

As of Parable of the Talents, a sequel to the novel set in 2032, Donner is played by religious fundamentalist Andrew Steele Jarrett, who is running for president on the slogan “Make America Great Again.” is being challenged by

In the chaos of the first book, Lauren decides that the authorities cannot help and decides to leave Robredo in hopes of finding a less hostile way to live. She seeks to share her personal “Earthseed” philosophy that people should live sustainably.

Lauren studies a book about Native American bushcraft and heads north on Highway 101, abandoning the work ethic that the authorities are trying to uphold. Lauren says she is driven by “hyperempathy,” a sensory state caused by her mother’s drug use during pregnancy, in which a teenage girl begins to experience the emotions of others, and people accept change and cooperate. I would like to establish a community where I can learn things.

But you may have to go much further than the freeway can take. Previously, she dismissed ongoing space exploration in 2024 as foolish. “That money wasted on another crazy space trip,” the 15-year-old mused at the beginning of her novel. “So many people on the planet cannot afford water, food, and shelter.”

But now she says: “The destiny of the Earthseed is to plant roots among the stars. If we want to be anything other than smooth-skinned dinosaurs, that’s the destiny we must pursue – be here today, be here tomorrow.” Gone, our bones will be mixed with the bones and ashes of our city.”

In the novel, President-elect Donner vows to abolish the federal Department of Space Flight. In contrast, Donald Trump reinstated the National Space Council and speculated: It could be infinite. I really don’t understand. But maybe so. It has to be something, but it could also be infinite, right?” Then he created the Space Force.

The novel begins with a description of a failed Mars mission. In this sense, we may actually be further along than Butler imagined his 2024 Earth situation. 3 years ago, NASA’s Perseverance rover “Percy” has landed in Jezero Crater on Mars.

Six days after Percy’s landing and 15 years after the death of the author of “Fable of the Sower,” authorities officially named the rover’s landing site the Octavia E. Butler Landing Site in his honor. did.