This novel follows Shevek, a physicist from the anarchist-Utopian settlement of the moon Anarres, in past and present. Beautifully written, sometimes it felt like I was reading a Socratic dialogue or Berkeley’s Three Dialogues. But, while heavy and emotional, it is never dense. Read this book!
— Matthew
I've never read a science fiction book that is more subtly packed with philosophy than this one. Le Guin takes on political theory, economics, and gender roles all at once, and even bats around at Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The story follows Shevek, an ambassador from an anarchist moon colony returning to the egalitarian world that his ancestors once turned away from. Over the course of the novel we see him evolve as a philosopher, a physicist, a diplomat, a lover, and a revolutionary. With The Dispossessed, Le Guin manages to achieve what is in my mind the ultimate goal of science fiction: to give us a story about a speculative world that enables the blossoming of ideas about our own world.
— From Owen
This novel follows Shevek, a physicist from the anarchist-Utopian settlement of the moon Anarres, in past and present. Beautifully written, sometimes it felt like I was reading a Socratic dialogue or Berkeley’s Three Dialogues. But, while heavy and emotional, it is never dense. Read this book!
— From Sophia“One of the greats….Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon.” – Stephen King
From the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.
A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.
To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist's gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was born in 1929 in Berkeley, and lives in Portland, Oregon. As of 2014, she has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry, and four of translation, and has received many honors and awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, and PEN/Malamud. Her most recent publications are Finding My Elegy: New and Selected Poems and The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories.
