The Seed and the Sower The Seed and the Sower The Seed and the Sower is a book by South African writer Laurens van der Post, consisting of three interrelated stories blended into a novel, first published in 1963. The novel was filmed in 1983 as "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", directed by Nagisa Oshima and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano. The first story is set in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Java during World War II and is a first person account of the relationship between John Lawrence, a British officer, and Sergeant Hara, one of the camp’s
Parable of the Sower (novel) The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival in New York City in 2015 and in 2018. "Parable of the Sower" was referred to in hip-hop artist Talib Kweli's song "Ms. Hill" off his mixtape "". In the song, which is about Lauryn Hill, Kweli references how Lauryn Hill used to come into Nkiru (a bookstore Kweli owns in Brooklyn, New York) and liked to buy Octavia Butler books, namely "Parable of the Sower". "We used to chill at Nkiru / her moms was a customer / she used to love to buy the books by Octavia Butler / Parable of