Malacandra is the planet ruled by the eldila in C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet.
Published in 1938, Out of the Silent Planet follows the philologist Elwin Ransom after he is kidnapped and taken into space. His destination is Malacandra, a planet that humans know as Mars. Lewis uses the planet to explore language, morality, colonialism, and the possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth.
The inhabitants of Malacandra include several intelligent species, known collectively as hnau. The eldila are spiritual or angelic beings connected with the planet’s moral and cosmic order. In the novel’s terminology, Earth is called Thulcandra, meaning the silent planet.
Malacandra is sometimes confused with Perelandra, which is the name Lewis gives to Venus in the second novel of the trilogy. Both names belong to Lewis’s Space Trilogy, but only Malacandra is the setting of the first volume.