The Day Before the Revolution

"The Day Before the Revolution"
Short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
Cover art for 2019 reprint
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Publication
Published in	Galaxy
Publication type	Magazine
Media type	Print
Publication date	August 1974
Series	Hainish Cycle

"The Day Before the Revolution" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. First published in the science fiction magazine Galaxy in August 1974, it was anthologized in Le Guin's 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters and in several subsequent collections. Set in Le Guin's fictional Hainish universe, the story has strong connections to her novel The Dispossessed (also published in 1974), and is sometimes referred to as a prologue to the longer work, though it was written later.

"The Day Before the Revolution" follows Odo, an aging anarchist revolutionary, who lives in a commune founded on her teachings. Over the course of a day, she relives memories of her life as an activist while she learns of a revolution in a neighboring country and gets caught up in plans for a general strike the next day. The strike is implied to be the beginning of the revolution that leads to the establishment of the idealized anarchist society based on Odo's teachings that is depicted in The Dispossessed.^[1]

Death, grief, and sexuality in older age are major themes explored in "The Day Before the Revolution".^[2] The story won the Nebula and Locus awards for Best Short Story in 1975, and was also nominated for a Hugo Award. It had a positive critical reception, with particular praise for its characterization of Odo: a review in Extrapolation called the story a "brilliant character sketch of a proud, strong woman hobbled by old age".^[3] Multiple scholars commented that it represented a tonal and thematic shift in Le Guin's writing and toward non-linear narrative structures and works infused with feminism.