gt-teacher from Urbana, Illinois
This is my favorite book. It is delightful, disgusting, intriguing, exaggerated, and true.
New York Times Book Review.
‘Less well known than The Handmaiden’s Tale but just as apocalyptic in [its] vision’
Women’s Review of Books
‘Elgin understands that until women find the words and syntax for what they need to say, they will never say it, nor will the world hear it … compelling’
A reader from Oosterhout, NB.
This is truly a brilliant book. It is believable science fiction, full of interesting ideas and truly mindstretching. As I said, a brilliant book!
jeremymb from New York City
This is one of the best "sci-fi" books I've ever read.This is what sci-fi is supposed to be.
Product Description
Set in the twenty-second century after the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment, the novel reveals a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. In this world, Earth's wealth relies on interplanetary commerce, for which the population depends on linguists, a small, clannish group of families whose women breed and become perfect translators of all the galaxies' languages. The linguists wield power, but live in isolated compounds, hated by the population and in fear of class warfare. But a group of women is destined to challenge the power of men and linguists. Nazareth, the most talented linguist of her family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for the government, supervising the children's language education in the Alien-in-Residence interface chambers, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth does not yet know is that a clandestine revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them of men's domination. Their secret must, above all, be kept until the language is ready for use. The women's language, Laadan, is only one of the brilliant creations found in this stunningly original novel, which combines a page-turning plot with challenging meditations on the tensions between freedom and control, individuals and communities, thought and action.
From the Publisher
THE FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC BACK IN PRINT
About the Author
Suzette Haden Elgin is the author of twelve science fiction novels, and numerous non-fiction works. She is widely known for her best-selling The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense and The Grandmother Principles. She is Professor Emeritusof Linguistics at San Diego State University and Director of Ozark Center for Language Studies in Arkansas.
