Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand (1905–1982), the Russian-born American novelist and founder of Objectivism, is best known for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but her most direct contribution to science fiction is Anthem (1938), a compact dystopia set in a collectivist future where the word ‘I’ has been abolished. Its lone rediscoverer of individuality made it, and its author’s fierce individualism, enduringly influential and controversial.