“May you get reborn on Anarres!”

“May you get reborn on Anarres!” is a wish spoken among people on Urras who take heart from the existence of Anarres. The phrase makes the distant anarchist society more than an abstract ideal: in the midst of political hardship, it offers a language of hope, while Shevek’s presence makes that hope tangible and politically dangerous.

Meaning and Use

Maedda tells Shevek that people on Urras have used the expression for a century and a half to wish one another luck. He explains what the wish draws upon: the knowledge that a society can exist without government, police, or economic exploitation. Anarres matters not merely as a promised future or an idealist’s dream, but as an inhabited society whose existence prevents that dismissal.

The wording casts rebirth as a wish rather than a program. It does not promise that the speaker will go to Anarres, or that its social order can simply be reproduced on Urras. Instead, it makes the possibility of another way of living available within ordinary speech, carrying political confidence through a compact, familiar blessing.

Political Context

The phrase surfaces as Maedda describes unrest in Nio Esseia. A demonstration has been announced against conscription, war taxes, and rising food prices; he cites four hundred thousand unemployed in the city and argues that a general strike and mass demonstrations are needed. His reference to the Ninth Month Strike led by Odo links present resistance to an earlier movement, while the wish about Anarres expresses what that history has come to mean for people still confronting exploitation.

Maedda also connects the expression to the authorities’ efforts to keep Shevek hidden at Ieu Eun University. Shevek has not been allowed to appear at public meetings, and Maedda expects that the authorities will pursue him once they discover he is gone. The reason, he says, is not only their interest in Shevek’s theory: Shevek himself embodies the possibility the phrase invokes. A woman makes the connection explicit, calling him proof that Odo’s idea can take human form; Maedda qualifies that proof as undemonstrable.

The Phrase and Shevek’s Choices

Shevek’s conduct gives the wish a material counterpart. Arriving on Urras without money or gifts, he calls himself a beggar and insists that, if he is to be kept alive, his hosts must give rather than sell. He tells Pae and Atro that he comes with empty hands, making the difference between Anarresti sharing and Urrasti commerce present in the terms of hospitality itself.

That difference becomes a political conflict when Shevek tells Chifoilisk that he came to bargain with Urras. His aim is to end the separation between the worlds and restore free exchange and human solidarity, not to accept a profitable welcome at the cost of his purpose. Later, he asks whether knowledge can be given rather than sold and offers his theory to Urras, Hain, and other worlds for common use, so no country can turn it into private profit, power over others, or an advantage in war. The wish for rebirth thus resonates with a practical demand: a different social order must be made through different relations of giving and sharing.

Borders and Consequences

The phrase’s hope stands against institutions that regulate movement and belonging. During the war, research can be classified, publication delayed, and non-nationals’ travel restricted; Shevek is told that he is not supposed to leave the university campus without the Chancellor’s clearance. At the other end of the exchange between worlds, the Terms of the Closure of the Settlement prohibit people arriving from Urras from going beyond the boundary of the Port of Anarres. The promised destination of the wish is therefore also a guarded boundary.

This tension gives the expression its force without making it a guarantee. Anarres can be invoked as proof that another society exists, yet access between it and Urras remains controlled, and Shevek’s presence is treated as a danger because it makes that proof visible. The phrase keeps possibility alive in everyday speech; the story tests that possibility against censorship, political violence, and the barriers separating the worlds.