From the Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of Parable of the Sower, an epic, sensual, and disturbing afrofuturistic trilogy of human transformation--presented for the first time in a single volume. Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected by miraculously powerful unearthly beings called the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children. This is their story ... Includes an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph.D.