Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, written in 1937, and first published in 1938 in England. The story unfolds within a society in which all traces of individualism have been eliminated from every aspect of life-use of the word 'I' is a capital offense. The hero, a rebel who discovers that man's greatest moral duty is the pursuit of his own happiness, embodies the values the author embraced in her personal philosophy of objectivism-reason, ethics, volition, and individualism. Hailed by The New York Times as ""a compelling dystopian look at paranoia from one of the most unique and perceptive writers of our time,""