Assembly 2020

East Portland Art + Justice Lab Virtual Reading: Parable of the Sower

Roshani Thakore, Garima Thakur, Jenny Chu, and Felecia Graham

The year is 2024.

Lauren Oya Olamina is the daughter of a Baptist minister who serves their walled-in neighborhood. Olamina suffers from hyperempathy, which causes her to share pain or perceived pain with any living creature she sees. When her community is attacked, burned, and looted, seventeen-year-old Olamina barely escapes with her life. She travels, at great danger, into northern California in search of a haven where she and others can build the first Earthseed community. The beliefs of Earthseed are recorded in the fictional book Earthseed: The Books of the Living.

Friends of the East Portland Art+Justice Lab will read excerpts of Octavia Butler’s book, Parable of the Sower. The excerpts reflect moments within the story where Lauren, the main character, is processing the dark realities around her and envisioning a new world.