The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
| "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" | |
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First book edition
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| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Published in | New Dimensions, volume 3 |
| Publication type | Anthology |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | 1973 |
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a 1973 plotless, short, descriptive work of philosophical fiction, though popularly classified as a short story, by Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction in 1974 and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1974.
Le Guin's piece was originally published in New Dimensions 3, a hard-cover science fiction anthology edited by Robert Silverberg, in October 1973. It was reprinted in Le Guin's The Wind's Twelve Quarters in 1975, and has been frequently anthologized elsewhere.
It has also appeared as an independently published, 31-page hardcover book for young adults in 1993.
It was republished in the second volume of the short-story anthology The Unreal and the Real in 2014.
The only chronological element of the work is that it begins by describing the first day of summer in Omelas, a shimmering city of unbelievable happiness and delight. In Omelas, the summer solstice is celebrated with a glorious festival and a race featuring children on horseback. The vibrant festival atmosphere, however, seems to be an everyday characteristic of the blissful community, whose citizens, though limited in their advanced technology to communal (rather than private) resources, are still intelligent, sophisticated, and cultured. Omelas has no kings, soldiers, priests, or slaves. The specific socio-politico-economic setup of the community is not mentioned, but the narrator merely explains that the reader cannot be sure of every particular.
Self-admittedly, the uncertain narrator reflects that "Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all." The narrator even suggests that, if necessary, the reader may include an orgy in their mental picture of Omelas.
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