Palat
Palat is Shevek’s father, who raises him with tenderness after Rulag leaves.
The book
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freePalat is Shevek’s father, who raises him with tenderness after Rulag leaves. His life gives Shevek an early example of care that is freely chosen rather than enforced by possession or law. Palat dies while trying to rescue children after an earthquake brings down a building. His death occurs before Shevek’s adult political struggle, but the memory of it helps define the selfless service Anarresti ideals can produce at their best.
If you like The Dispossessed
If you like Ursula K. Le Guin
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
George Orwell
English novelist, essayist and journalist, born Eric Arthur Blair, who wrote Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was an imperial policeman in Burma, a plongeur in Paris kitchens off the rue Mouffetard, and a militiaman shot through the neck in Spain before any of it.
View author
Albert Camus
French Algerian novelist, essayist, journalist and playwright who used the absurd and revolt to ask how people should live without false consolation.
View author
Simone de Beauvoir
French writer and philosopher whose novels, memoirs, and social analysis examined freedom, gender, responsibility, aging, and the material conditions that shape a life.
View author