"a cerebral altar to the desert" (Raquel Gutiérrez). Their work investigates queer life and fantasies of space with an interest in unraveling colonial narratives in the American Southwest. They’ve published articles, interviews and poetry with The Paris Review, BOMB, Technikart, Makhzin, and Post45/Contemporaries.
At Electric Lit Atterbury tagged eight books that "remind us that another world is always possible, whether here, 'out there,' or somewhere between." One title on the list:
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le GuinRead about the other entries on Atterbury's list at Electric Lit.
No list about space, power, and alternate possibilities would be complete without Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, which turned 50 last year. (Happy birthday!) If you, like me, were always meaning to read it, you may vaguely know that the book offers a vision of an anarchist moon society struggling against the gravitationalpull of capitalism and excess. Le Guin’s twin planets, Urras and Anarres, extend state repression into space, where imperial logics go unchecked. But the novel’s profound counter-narrative centers in Anarres, the anarchist moon, which embodies a living experiment in mutual aid, collective decision-making, and freedom from private property. trust. Le Guin’s utopian worlds remain fragile and unfinished, forever vulnerable to bureaucratic rigidity and the pull of old hierarchies.
Unlike stories that glorify space colonization as progress, The Dispossessed insists that freedom must be continually reimagined, not exported like a commodity. For me, this book remains a stunning reminder that the social life of space can reproduce earthly politics and economics, or become a galvanizing point for solidarity beyond national (Earth) borders.
The Dispossessed is among Naomi Klein's six favorite books and Luke Rhinehart's five favorite sci-fi satires.
--Marshal Zeringue
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