Anarres

Did You Know?

• Ships from Urras arrive at the Port of Anarres eight times per year under the Trade Agreement.
• The novel begins with Shevek's departure from the Port of Anarres on the space freighter Mindful.
• According to the Terms of the Closure of the Settlement, nobody from Urrasti ships may go beyond the wall of the Port of Abbenay.

Social, economic and political organisation

Society on Anarres is built on mutual aid, voluntary association, and non-coercion. Economic activity is divided into syndicates and federatives, with work postings handled by an automated system called Divlab. The network of administration and management is the Production and Distribution Coordination (PDC), which coordinates production without governing persons. The language Pravic does not distinguish between work and play, but the term kleggich refers to drudgery, the menial labor that most Anarresti volunteer for one day per decad, a ten-day cycle. Le Guin drew on anarchist thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman, as well as Lao Tzu, to shape the society. The economic structure applies Kropotkin's anarcho-syndicalism, and the society follows a philosophical version of Taoism. The novel took shape after the Vietnam War protests, as Le Guin studied peace and nonviolent resistance.

Geography, environment and ecology

Anarres has one continuous landmass and three oceans: the Sorruba Sea, the Temaenian Sea, and the Keran Sea. These seas have been isolated for millions of years, leading to diverse marine life. On land, only three phyla exist, all non-chordates, with no insects, birds, quadrupeds, or flowering plants. The climate is shaped by a millennial era of dust and dryness. Fertile coastal strips support farming and fishing, but the dry plains of the Southwest, known as the Dust, are largely uninhabited. Flora includes spiny scrub, moonthorn, and the holum tree, used for food, textiles, and paper. Terrestrial fauna consist of bacteria, many lithophagous, and a few hundred species of worm and crustacean. Large-scale afforestation projects, such as the West Temaenian Littoral project, aim to increase fertility, while biologists study techniques to improve fish stocks.

The history of settlement

Anarres was settled by Odonians about 170 years before Shevek's visit to Urras. Before settlement, Urrasti astronomer-priests admired the region later called Abbenay, naming it Ans Ho, the Garden of Mind. Urrasti ships later established a mercury mining settlement there, renaming it Anarres Town, but it was a male-only mining outpost. Anarres was under the Urrasti Council of World Governments until a group of Thu gold miners lived secretly in the Eastern hemisphere with their families. When the government of Thu collapsed and Odonian rebellion threatened Urras, the Council gave Anarres to the Odonians. The Urrasti evacuated, leaving a few Thu miners who chose to stay. Over twenty years, one million Odonian settlers migrated to Anarres.

Main communities and features

Abbenay, meaning Mind in the Odonian language, was the first Odonian settlement, formerly called Ans Ho and Anarres Town. Odo envisioned self-reliant communities connected by transport and communication networks, with no controlling center or capital. However, Anarres's scarce and scattered resources made self-sufficiency impossible for some communities, so Abbenay became the de facto center of Odonian society. It houses administration technology, the division of labor, goods distribution, syndicate federatives, and the only space port on Anarres, which enables trade with Urras. Communities follow a basic structure of workshops, factories, domiciles, dormitories, learning centers, meeting halls, distributories, depots, and refectories. Abbenay is described as a bare, quiet city with light colors and pure air.