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Five-hundred-year anniversary edition of More´s Utopia, with writing from major science fiction writers

Five hundred years since its first publication, Thomas More´s Utopia remains astonishingly radical and provocative. More imagines an island nation where thousands live in peace and harmony, men and women are both educated, and property is communal. In a text hovering between fantasy, satire, blueprint and game, More explores the theories and realities behind war, political conflicts, social tensions and redistribution, and imagines the day-to-day lives of a citizenry living free from fear, oppression, violence and suffering.

But there has always been a shadow at the heart of Utopia. If this is a depiction of the perfect state, why, as well as wonder, does it provoke a growing unease?

In this quincentenary edition, published in conjunction with Somerset House, More´s text is introduced by multi-award-winning author China Miéville and accompanied by four essays from Ursula K. Le Guin, today´s most distinguished utopian writer and thinker..

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"We can´t do without this book. We are all and have always been Thomas More´s children."
-China Miéville

"I am offered the Grand Inquisitor´s choice. Will you choose freedom without happiness, or happiness without freedom? The only answer one can make, I think, is: No."
-Ursula K. Le Guin

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Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was a counsellor to Henry VIII of England and a revered Renaissance humanist scholar. He was executed for refusing to acknowledge the king as head of the Church of England and was eventually canonized by the Catholic Church as a result.

Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of twenty-two novels, four collections of essays, seven books of poetry, twelve children´s books and over a hundred short stories.

China Miéville is the award-winning author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, including the The City and The City and This Census-Taker.

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