Since the fires began last week, “Parable of the Sower” and other Butler works have been cited for anticipating a world — and, particularly, a Los Angeles — wracked by climate change, racism and economic disparity.
The Altadena cemetery where the science fiction and Afrofuturism author is buried did catch fire last week but suffered “minimal damage,” according to a statement on the cemetery's web site.
Her Altadena cemetery survived Decades ago, the writer Octavia Butler had imagined a Los Angeles ravaged by fires.
“We had a fire today,” reads a Feb. 1, 2025, diary entry in the book, referring to a small fire that presages the destructive fires to come in the novel.
The grave of Butler, who died in 2006 at 58, is marked by a footstone etched with a quote from “Parable of the Sower,” among her most famous novels: “All that you touch, you change.
