The Dispossessed
John W. Campbell Memorial Award, 1975
One of the very best must-read novels of all time – with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle
‘A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again’ THE TIMES
‘The book I wish I had written … It’s so far away from my own imagination, I’d love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin’ Roddy Doyle
‘Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power’ OBSERVER
The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous communication. It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres.
But Shevek’s work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres’s sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more liberty and tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.
‘A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again’ THE TIMES
‘The book I wish I had written … It’s so far away from my own imagination, I’d love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin’ Roddy Doyle
‘Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power’ OBSERVER
The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous communication. It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres.
But Shevek’s work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres’s sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more liberty and tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.
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Reviews
A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again
Le Guin's book ... is so persuasive that it ought to put a stop to the writing of prescriptive Utopias for at least 10 years
An extraordinary work ... [Le Guin] created a working society in exquisite detail ... a fully realised hypothetical culture [as well as] living breathing characters who are inevitable products of that culture
The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin
Le Guin's storytelling is sharp, magisterial, funny, thought-provoking and exciting, exhibiting all that science fiction can be
Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power
[Le Guin had] the heart of a poet who knew all too well the difference between miracle and eureka, revelation and revolution
A deeply imagined work of art
