The Dispossessed
1974
Science Fiction
Subtitled "An Ambiguous Utopia", Le Guin's Hugo- and Nebula-winning 1974 novel follows Shevek, a brilliant physicist from Anarres — a moon settled generations earlier by anarchist exiles from the capitalist twin planet Urras. Disillusioned by his home society's stagnation and soft conformism, Shevek defects to Urras to share his unified theory of time and finds a glittering, hierarchical world that horrifies him. Alternating chapters trace his life on each planet, dramatising a careful, sympathetic, but unsentimental thought experiment about anarcho-syndicalism, scarcity, and the cost of freedom.