''One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century'' JUNOT DIAZ''Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans. I think she can help each of us to do the same'' GLORIA STEINEMOne woman is called upon to reconstruct humanity in this hopeful, thought-provoking novel by the bestselling, award-winning author. For readers of Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison and Ursula K. Le Guin. When Lilith lyapo wakes in a small white room with no doors or windows, she remembers a devastating war, and a husband and child long lost to her.She finds herself living among the Oankali, a strange race who intervened in the fate of humanity hundreds of years before. They spared those they could from the ruined Earth, and suspended them in a long, deep sleep. Over centuries, the Oankali learned from the past, cured disease and healed the world. Now they want Lilith to lead her people back home. But salvation comes at a price - to restore humanity, it must be changed forever...PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR''In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time... for sheer peculiar prescience, Butler''s novel may be unmatched'' NEW YORKER''Butler''s prose, always pared back to the bone, delineates the painful paradoxes of metamorphosis with compelling precision'' GUARDIAN''Octavia Butler was a visionary'' VIOLA DAVIS''Her evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately,what it means to be human'' NEW YORK TIMES''An icon of the Afrofuturism world, envisioning literary realms that placed black characters front and center'' VANITY FAIR''Butler writes with such a familiarity that the alien is welcome and intriguing. She really artfully exposes our human impulse to self-destruct'' LUPITA NYONG''O