Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler)
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50 free Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Octavia Butler published Parable of the Sower in 1993 and set it in a California of the 2020s where water is scarce and expensive, jobs are few and whole streets shelter behind fortifications. Decades later, many people come to it as the novel that seemed to see the future coming. This quiz follows teenage narrator Lauren Olamina from her family's walled street to the open road: the relatives and neighbors she loses, the strangers she gathers, the belief system she builds verse by verse, and the place where the trek ends. More questions cover Butler herself, the sequel, and the adaptations and honors that came later. Use it as a chapter check after finishing the book, a warm-up for a book club, or a test for longtime Butler fans. The questions run from the main plot points to details only an attentive fan will catch.
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Q 01In Parable of the Sower, what name does Lauren Olamina give the new religion she secretly creates?
Earthseed
Earthseed grows out of verses Lauren drafts in private as a teenager. By the end of the novel, the strangers who walk north with her have become its first congregation.
Q 02Which condition makes Lauren Olamina feel other people's pain in Parable of the Sower?
Hyperempathy
Hyperempathy, which Lauren calls sharing, traces back to a drug her mother took. On her father's advice she keeps it secret, fearing others will see her as weak.
Q 03NASA named the 2021 touchdown site of which rover after Parable of the Sower author Octavia Butler?
Perseverance
Perseverance set down in Jezero Crater at a spot NASA christened Octavia E. Butler Landing. The agency announced the name as the rover made its first drive.
Q 04Parable of the Sower first made which newspaper's best-seller list 14 years after its author died?
The New York Times
The New York Times list first carried the novel on September 3, 2020, some 27 years after it was published. Butler, who died in 2006, never saw it there.
Q 05Musician Toshi Reagon and her mother turned Parable of the Sower into what kind of stage work?
An opera
An opera was the result, with a score that blends spirituals, soul, rock and roll and folk. Reagon built it with her mother, the singer and composer Bernice Johnson Reagon.
Q 06In Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina's new religion is built on the idea that God is what?
Change
Change is the one constant Lauren sees in her collapsing world. Her followers are urged to steer it through deliberate effort instead of waiting to be rescued.
Q 07Before walking north in Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina cuts her hair to pass as what?
A man
A man in the group makes the three survivors look less vulnerable on roads full of predators. Lauren completes the disguise with clothes salvaged from her ruined home.
Q 08In 1995, Octavia Butler became the first science fiction author to win which honor?
MacArthur Fellowship
MacArthur Fellowship winners are popularly called geniuses, and Butler's grant came with $295,000. It arrived two years after Parable of the Sower, following years of low-paid jobs.
Q 09Parable of the Sower, which opens in July 2024, is told by Lauren Olamina in what form?
Journal entries
Journal entries dated from 2024 to 2027 carry the whole story. The audience learns only what a teenager on the run chooses to set down each night.
Q 10What do Lauren Olamina's travelers name the community they found at the end of Parable of the Sower?
Acorn
Acorn takes its name from the oak seeds the group plants for each loved one lost on the way. It becomes the first settlement of Lauren's new faith.
Q 11In Parable of the Sower, Lauren's walled neighborhood lies about twenty miles from which big city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is where Lauren's restless younger brother dreams of making money. Lauren resolves to walk the other way, north, perhaps as far as Canada.
Q 12Lauren's father in Parable of the Sower leads the neighborhood as a minister of which denomination?
Baptist
Baptist belief shaped the author too: Butler recalled being raised by her mother and grandmother in a strict Baptist home. Lauren is baptized even though she has lost that faith.
Q 13In Parable of the Sower, what does Lauren Olamina's faith call the ultimate Destiny of humankind?
Settle other planets
Q 21In Parable of the Sower, what does Lauren Olamina start teaching Zahra Moss, who grew up homeless?
How to read
How to read and write is a rare skill on the road, and Zahra had never been taught either. Two sisters rescued from a collapsed house soon join the lessons.
Q 22In Parable of the Sower, what has happened to the doctor's farmhouse when Lauren's group arrives?
It has burned down
It has burned down, and five skulls in the ashes show that the doctor's sister and her family died there. After arguing it over, the travelers decide to stay and build anyway.
Q 23At age 10, Parable of the Sower author Octavia Butler begged her mother to buy her what?
A typewriter
Settle other planets: that is the Destiny Lauren preaches, convinced that leaving a failing Earth will force humanity into adulthood. It serves as her faith's version of heaven.
Q 14Which 1998 Octavia Butler sequel picks up Lauren Olamina's story five years after the first book?
Parable of the Talents
Parable of the Talents opens in 2032 and sees religious zealots overrun Lauren's settlement and turn it into a re-education camp. The other three titles were books Butler planned but never finished.
Q 15Parable of the Sower borrows its title from a story about scattered seed told by whom?
Jesus
Jesus tells of a farmer whose seed lands on a path, on rock, among thorns and on good soil. Butler closes the novel with the passage itself.
Q 16Which natural disaster throws the Bay Area into chaos during Lauren's trek in Parable of the Sower?
An earthquake
An earthquake sets off fires and looting along the route. In the wreckage Lauren's group pulls two young sisters from a collapsed house, and both join the march.
Q 17In Parable of the Sower, what relation to Lauren Olamina is Cory, who runs the neighborhood school?
Her stepmother
Her stepmother Cory holds a PhD and is the mother of Lauren's younger brothers. As the neighborhood declines she wants the family to move away, but her husband refuses to go.
Q 18During target practice in Parable of the Sower, Lauren shares the dying pain of which animal?
A feral dog
A feral dog is shot in the hills, and Lauren almost collapses as it dies. Packs roam outside the neighborhood, one reason every household in her street keeps at least two guns.
Q 19Which doctor, nearly 40 years older than Lauren, becomes her partner in Parable of the Sower?
Bankole
Bankole, a 57-year-old widower from San Diego, owns the northern California land where the travelers finally stop. Lauren notes how much he reminds her of her father.
Q 20In Parable of the Sower, which of Lauren's brothers runs away to live among thieves and is murdered?
Keith
Keith first slips out by stealing his mother's key, and later comes home with rolls of cash he will not account for. His body is found after months of getting by on robbery.
A typewriter, a Remington, was the prize, and she pecked out stories on it with two fingers. By 13 she was submitting her work to magazines.
Q 24Which California town is home to Lauren's walled neighborhood when Parable of the Sower opens?
Robledo
Robledo is Butler's invention, a suburb where the middle class shelters behind a wall while the homeless and desperate live in the streets outside.
Q 25In Parable of the Sower, which coastal town sells itself to the corporation KSF?
Olivar
Olivar gives itself to KSF in return for help stopping the erosion of its coastline. Lauren's father is skeptical of the scheme, though Cory wants the family to move there.
Q 26In Parable of the Sower, which childhood friend escapes the massacre and walks north with Lauren?
Harry Balter
Harry Balter is badly beaten while helping Zahra Moss escape an attacker. More trusting than Lauren, he has to learn to be ruthless once they are on the road.
Q 27In Parable of the Sower, which friend reveals Lauren Olamina's secret survival plans to her parents?
Joanne Garfield
Joanne Garfield repeats the conversation at home, exaggerating it, and Lauren's father orders Lauren to stop panicking people. Lauren never fully trusts her again.
Q 28In Parable of the Sower, what do raiders use to breach the wall of Lauren Olamina's neighborhood?
A truck through the gate
A truck through the gate lets in the pyro addicts, who set the houses alight. Lauren grabs the emergency pack she had long kept ready and runs into the dark.
Q 29In Parable of the Sower, which highway do Lauren and hundreds of other walkers follow up the coast?
U.S. 101
U.S. 101 has become a river of refugees on foot, all heading for water and work in the north. Lauren's trio trusts no one and takes turns keeping watch at night.
Q 30In Parable of the Sower, Lauren's group detours inland through which city to avoid the Bay Area?
Sacramento
Sacramento is reached by September, after a rest at the San Luis Reservoir. The stretch shows the group some of the grimmest sights of the whole walk.