Search results
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (/ ˈ k r oʊ b ər l ə ˈ ɡ w ɪ n / KROH-bər lə GWIN; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She wrote works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series.
- Ursula K. Le Guin Bibliography
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) was an American author of...
- Hainish Universe
The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction...
- The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed (subtitled An Ambiguous Utopia) is a 1974...
- The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by the...
- Alfred Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (/ ˈ k r oʊ b ər / KROH-bər; June 11,...
- Yahi
Anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of...
- Theodora Kroeber
Theodora Kroeber (/ ˈ k r oʊ b ər / KROH-bər; née Theodora...
- A Wizard of Earthsea
A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy novel written by American...
- Earthsea
The Earthsea Cycle, also known as Earthsea, is a series of...
- Ursula K. Le Guin Bibliography
May 29, 2024 · Ursula K. Le Guin (born October 21, 1929, Berkeley, California, U.S.—died January 22, 2018, Portland, Oregon) was an American writer best known for tales of science fiction and fantasy imbued with concern for character development and language.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Life
- Beliefs and Values
- Writing Career
- About The Writing
- Themes
- Responses to Her Work
- Books
Early life: California
Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California, on October 21, 1929. Her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876–1960), was an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Le Guin's mother, Theodora Kroeber (1897–1979; born Theodora Covel Kracaw), had a graduate degree in psychology. She started writing in her sixties and became a successful author. Her best known work was Ishi in Two Worlds (1961). This was a biography of Ishi, an indigenous American who was the la...
Education
Le Guin studied at Berkeley High School. She graduated with another student who became a famous science fiction author, Philip K. Dick. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College in 1951. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Le Guin then studied at Columbia University, and earned a Master of Arts in French in 1952. Soon after, she began a Ph.D. program. She won a Fulbright grant to continue her studies in France from...
France
Le Guin stayed at Hôtel de Seine while in Paris. Ursula met historian Charles Le Guin in 1953 while traveling to France on the Queen Mary, . Charles was also a Fulbright Scholar. They got married in Paris in December 1953.They returned to the United States in 1954.
Political Freedom
In 1975, Le Guin won a Nebula Award for her story "The Diary of the Rose." She did not accept the award. This was a protest against the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The SFWA had recently canceled Stanisław Lem's membership in the group. Le Guin believed they kicked Lem out because he criticized American science fiction and chose to live in the Soviet Union, She said she could not take an award for a story about an unfree society from a writers' group that did not protect fr...
Religion
Le Guin said she was did not learn any religion and was not taught to be religious as a child. But, she became very interested in Taoism and Buddhism. She said that Taoism was a tool to help her understand her life as a teenager and young adult. In 1997 she published a translation of the Tao Te Ching.
Author's rights
In December 2009, Le Guin quit the Authors Guild. She did this to protest the Guild's agreement with the Google's book digitization project. "You decided to deal with the devil", she wrote in her letter when she quit. She wrote that they had given control over authors' rights and copyright to a company for nothing. Le Guin made a speech at the 2014 National Book Awards. She explained that Amazon's control over the publishing industry was bad and dangerous. She was especially concerned about h...
Early writing-1951-1968
Le Guin's first published work was in her fictional country called Orsinia. These were a poem and a short story. The poem, "Folksong from the Montayna Province," was published in 1959. The short story was "An die Musik", in 1961. Between 1951 and 1961 she also wrote five novels that all happened in Orsinia. But, publishers did not want them because they thought they were hard to read or understand. Some of her poetry from the 1950s was published in 1975 in a book called Wild Angels. Le Guin w...
Getting more attention
Le Guin's next two books in 1968 and 1969 brought her much more attention and praise. The Wizard of Earthsea in 1968 was a young adult fantasy novel. The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969 started her Hainish universe, explored sexuality, and won awards. These two books changed Le Guin's career and made her a major writer. The important critic Harold Bloom called A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of DarknessLe Guin's masterpieces. Le Guin had not planned to write for young adults. But, the ed...
Later writing
The Annals of the Western Shore was a series of three books: Gifts (2004), Voices (2006), and Powers (2007). Each book has a different main character and happens in a different place. But, the books all share some characters and places.Gifts won the PEN Center USA 2005 Children's literature award. Powers won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2009. Le Guin published the novel Lavinia in 2008. Lavinia is a character from Virgil's Aeneid, Near the end of her life, Le Guin wrote less fiction. Sh...
Influences
Many other writers influenced Le Guin. Cultural anthropology was important to her writing. Carl Jung's archetypes are in her work. Taoism was part of Le Guin's life and work.
Gender and sexuality
Gender and sexuality are important themes in Le Guin's writing. The Left Hand of Darkness was one of the first books in feminist science fiction. It was published in 1969 before the idea of feminist science fiction was its own genre. It is the most famous science fiction book about androgyny. The story happens on the fictional planet, Gethen. People on the planet are ambisexual humans. THey can change their gender identity and adopt female or male sexual characteristics as part of their sexua...
Political systems
The story of The Dispossessed happens on twin planets called Urras and Anarres. Urras was richer than Anarres. But Anarres is more advanced ethically and morally. Sttlers from Urras planned the Anarres society. It is an anarcho-socialist society that is an "ambiguous utopia". Anarres society is neither perfect nor static, unlike classical utopias. The main character, Shevek, travels to Urras to do research. Urras society is authoritarian, hierarchical, and misogynistic. But these the anarchis...
Reception
Le Guin became popular and got good reviews quickly after publishing The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969. She was very well known among SF writers by the 1970s. Readers bought millions of her books. And, her writing was translated into more than 40 languages. Some of her books stayed in print many decades after their first publication. Academics studied her work carefully and discussed it often. Later in her career, mainstream literary critics wrote positively about her work. In an obituary, Jo...
Awards and recognition
Le Guin won many annual awards for individual works. She was nominated for Hugo Awards twenty-four times and won seven times. She won six Nebula Awards from eighteen nominations. Four of her Nebula Awards were for Best Novel, more than any other writer. Le Guin won twenty-two Locus Awards. Her third Earthsea novel, The Farthest Shore, won the 1973 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, She was a finalist for ten Mythopoeic Awards, nine in Fantasy and one for Scholarship. Her 1996...
Legacy and influence
Le Guin had a strong influence on speculative fiction. Jo Walton argued that Le Guin was important in two ways. One, she made the genre more open to new ideas. Two, she helped genre writers get mainstream success. A Wizard of Earthsea was the first book about a "wizard school." This later became more famous in the Harry Potter series of books. The idea of a boy wizard as the main character in Harry Pottercame from Le Guin's writing. In 2022, Le Guin's son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, announced a new...
Earthsea
1. A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968 2. The Tombs of Atuan, 1971 3. The Farthest Shore, 1972 (Winner of the National Book Award) 4. Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, 1990 (Winner of the Nebula Award) 5. The Other Wind, 2001 6. Tales from Earthsea, short story collection, 2001 (winner of Endeavour Award)
Hainish Cycle
x 1. Rocannon's World, 1966 2. Planet of Exile, 1966 3. City of Illusions, 1967 4. The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969 (winner of the Hugo Award and Nebula Award) 5. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, 1974 (winner of the Hugo Award and Nebula Award) 6. The Word for World is Forest, 1976 (winner of the Hugo Award) 7. Four Ways to Forgiveness, 1995 (Four Stories of the Ekumen) 8. The Telling, 2000 (winner of Endeavour Award)
Miscellaneous novels and story cycles
1. The Lathe of Heaven, 1971 (made into TV movies, 1980 and 2002) 2. The Eye of the Heron, 1978 (first published in the anthology Millennial Women) 3. Malafrena, 1979 4. The Beginning Place, 1980 (also published as Threshold, 1986) 5. Always Coming Home, 1985 6. Lavinia, 2008
People also ask
What is the Ursula Le Guin Prize?
How did Le Guin portray gender in Earthsea?
Why is Le Guin called Ekumen?
How did Le Guin become famous?
