Back The Dispossessed Afrikaans النازحون (رواية) Arabic Els Desposseïts Catalan Vyděděnec Czech Planet der Habenichtse German Los desposeídos Spanish خلعشدگان Persian Osattomien planeetta Finnish Les Dépossédés (roman, 1974) French המנושל HE
.jpg) Cover of first edition (hardcover) | |
| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Fred Winkowski |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Hainish Cycle |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Published | 1974 (Harper & Row) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 341 (first edition) |
| Awards | Locus Award for Best Novel (1975) |
| ISBN | 0-06-012563-2 (first edition, hardcover) |
| OCLC | 800587 |
| Preceded by | The Word for World is Forest |
| Followed by | Four Ways to Forgiveness |
The Dispossessed (subtitled An Ambiguous Utopia) is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, one of her seven Hainish Cycle novels. It is one of a small number of books to win all three Hugo, Locus and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.[1] It achieved a degree of literary recognition unusual for science fiction due to its exploration of themes such as anarchism and revolutionary societies, capitalism, utopia, individualism, and collectivism.
It features the development of the mathematical theory underlying a fictional ansible, a device capable of faster-than-light communication (it can send messages without delay, even between star systems) that plays a critical role in the Hainish Cycle. The invention of the ansible places the novel first in the internal chronology of the Hainish Cycle, although it was the fifth published.[2]
- ^ "Ursula K. Le Guin Awards". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Retrieved 2021-09-24.
- ^ In The Word for World is Forest, a newly created ansible is brought to Athshe, a planet being settled by Earth-humans. In other tales in the Hainish Cycle, an ansible already exists. The word "ansible" was coined in Rocannon's World (first in order of publication but third in internal chronology), where it is central to the plot, and became an important concept throughout the realm of science fiction.