The Telling

“The Interpreters” is a science-fiction novel by American writer Ursula Le Guin, belonging to the Hainish Cycle, winner of the 2001 Locus Award. It tells the story of the Earthwoman Satti, sent as an observer by the Ekumen on the planet Aka. Once a culturally rich world, the planet was completely transformed by modern technologies. Traces of the past have been destroyed, and citizens are under totalitarian control. But Satti learns about a group of renegades living in the mountains. They still believe in old traditions and preserve their system of philosophy in oral form—so-called “interpretation.”

Locus / Locus Award — Winner, 2001 // Novel