Today’s episode explores how Octavia E. Butler’s dystopian novels, particularly Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, offer a prophetic lens through which to understand contemporary Los Angeles. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, reflects on a former teacher's decision to teach Butler's work as essential American literature, arguing that this choice prepared students to recognise the “call and response” between Butler’s fictional narratives and the realities of their city. Through a series of direct comparisons, the essay highlights how Butler’s themes of environmental collapse, social stratification, militarized policing, economic exploitation, and a manipulated populace manifest in modern-day Los Angeles. The piece concludes by asserting that what Butler wrote as parable, and what a teacher once taught as literature, Los Angelenos now experience as stark reality.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/parable-in-the-pavement-reading-butler

Let me know what you think.

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