Why Young People Love Octavia Butler’s Cautionary Tale

When the great sci-fi writer Octavia Butler wrote her seminal book, Parable of the Sower, in 1993, she imagined 15-year-old protagonist Lauren Olamina starting her Earthseed journal on July 20, 2024. That date has just passed, and, according to youth reporter Aina Marzia, Butler’s work strikes a powerful chord with Generation Z readers.

In an in-depth report for YES! Magazine, probing the source of this affinity, Marzia makes the case that Butler’s solutions to late-stage capitalism are inspiring a new generation grappling with our contemporary dystopian reality. She asks, “Is it easier to imagine the end of the world than to build a socialist framework?”