Source

• Born: 21 October 1929
• Birthplace: Berkeley, California
• Best Known As: Top science fiction author

Name at birth: Ursula Kroeber

Ursula Le Guin was educated at Radcliffe College and Columbia University, and began publishing science fiction stories and novels in 1964. In 1969 Le Guin won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for The Left Hand of Darkness, and in 1974 she won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for The Dispossessed. Also an author of children's books, Le Guin won the National Book Award in 1972 for The Farthest Shore, and has authored several books in the Catwings series.

Science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin (born 1929) created fantastic worlds in which the author's strong-willed, feminist protagonists have increasingly taken center stage.

An understanding of both anthropology and varied cultures informed the highly acclaimed science fiction writing of Ursula K. Le Guin. In such books as the Earthsea Trilogy, The Lathe of Heaven, and The Left Hand of Darkness, she created what Nancy Jesser in Feminist Writers called "an anthropology of the future, imagining whole cultural systems and conflicts." Eschewing the "pulp" aspects of most science-fiction-brawny male heroes, compliant women, and over-the-top technology as both cause and solution to the world's problems-Le Guin was known for skillfully telling a story containing many layers of meaning beneath its calm exterior. Her Earthsea novels have been cited by several reviewers as characteristic of her work; an essayist in Science Fiction Writers commented that, as it was "constrained neither by realistic events nor by scientific speculation, but only by the author's moral imagination, " the Earthsea books showed such characteristic themes from "questing and patterning motifs to [her] overall emphasis on 'wholeness and balance."' Echoes of Taoism, Jungian psychology, ecological concerns, and mythos resonate throughout her written works.

Inspired by Parents' Example

Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, on October 21, 1929. Her father, anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber, was noted for his studies of the Native American cultures of California. Her mother, Theodora Kroeber Quinn, was a psychologist and, in her later years, a writer; she would be a particularly strong influence on her daughter, both as a writer and as a feminist.

Raised in an intellectually stimulating environment, Le Guin excelled at academics. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Harvard University's Radcliffe College, where she received her bachelor's degree, in 1951, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa national honorary. Course work in New York City, at Columbia University, followed. Le Guin was named a faculty fellow, in 1952, and received a Fulbright fellowship to study in Paris, in 1953, having earned her master's degree in romance literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance from Columbia, the previous year.

The year after she earned her master's degree at Columbia, Le Guin married the historian Charles A. Le Guin. The couple made their home in Portland, Oregon. They had two daughters and one son. Prior to raising her family, she got a job as a French instructor at Mercer University, in Macon, Georgia, before moving on to the University of Idaho for a brief period, in 1956.

Short Fiction Set Stage for Novels

Le Guin's first written efforts consisted of poetry and short fiction. Her first published work was the story "April in Paris, " which appeared in Fantastic magazine, in 1962, when she was 33 years old. Le Guin's first novel, Rocannon's World, would be published by Ace Books, in 1966. It was the first of many science-fiction works she would write in the following decades, and the first of her five-volume "Hainish" series of novels. In the Hainish novels - Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Word for World Is Forest - the author allowed readers to follow the physical and emotional journeys taken by her protagonists as they were confronted with cultures that had rules and systems radically different from their own. The Hainish were a race of beings from the planet Hain who have colonized all planets of the Universe that will sustain them. As each colony adapted to its new, unique environment, it developed differently, evolving distinctive physical and cultural traits in relation to other Hain colonies. Le Guin's protagonists must become, in a sense, amateur anthropologists in their attempts to understand and exist within new worlds as they journey between colonies, re-evaluating their own cultural assumptions in the process.

Novels Explored Universal Themes

While most science fiction has traditionally been dismissed by critics, as well as serious students of literature, Le Guin's sophisticated, well-studied, yet immensely readable novels have been able to break the barrier and gain a mainstream audience and mainstream attention, perhaps because of her ability to weave fantasy elements into her gentle, often dispassionate prose. After the publication of the highly acclaimed The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969, 1971's The Lathe of Heaven, and 1974's The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, Le Guin's work began to be taken seriously, even within academic circles.

With these novels, the author seriously explored the influence of gender roles and race on cultural attitudes, and focused on such backlashes as sexism and oppression in all of their forms. The juxtaposition of contrasting societies was a familiar motif: one society off balance, characterized by violence, injustice, and inequality; the other stable, just, and peaceful. This duality related to the universal duality reflected in such sources as the Christian belief in heaven and hell, or the Taoist philosophy of balanced opposites, the yin and yang. Le Guin's focus on this universal duality has allowed her fiction to speak to mainstream readers, particularly those not inducted into the heavy-duty technological concerns addressed in so-called "hard science fiction."

In her works after the Hainish novels, Le Guin began to broaden her talents, writing poetry, the short play No Use to Talk to Me, two volumes of literary criticism, and several children's books. In her imaginative Catwings and Catwings Return, she entertained younger readers with imaginary worlds containing flying cats and kittens. In Le Guin's adult novels written after the mid-1970s, she also began to stretch the boundaries of her so-called science fiction, creating the quasi-history of an anonymous nineteenth-century country in 1979's, Malafrena, and again in the short stories collected in Orsinian Tales, and combining music (via an accompanying cassette), verse, anthropologist's notations, and stories in 1985's, Always Coming Home, a book about the Kesh, future inhabitants of California who establish a new society after ecological Armageddon.

Fantasy Fiction as Effective Allegory

Whether set in the past or future, each of Le Guin's novels actually addressed the present. Imbedded within the plot of her 1972 novel The Word for World Is Forest, thoughtful readers could easily discover solemn parallels to the Vietnam War era, as well as telling commentary about the destruction of the world's rain forests. The novel told of the reaction of the colonizing culture-the Terrans-to the peaceful, forest-dwelling tribes-the Athsheans (read "indigenous tribes of South America and Indonesia") that they encountered in their new home. Because they fear the ways of the Athsheans, the Terrans react violently, destroying the homes of the forest dwellers in an effort to exterminate them and reap financial rewards.

Award-winning Quartet

Spanning Le Guin's career as a writer were her four award-winning Earthsea novels, which have been praised by critics as some of her most enjoyable works. Beginning with 1968's A Wizard of Earthsea, readers met the goat herder Ged, who lives on one of a kingdom of islands known as Earthsea, as he trains to become a practitioner of magic. In later novels in the series-The Tombs of Atuan (1970) and The Farthest Shore (1972)-Ged matured as both a man and a wizard, grappling with hubris, then flattery, before sacrificing his own powers to save his world. In 1990s, Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, which concluded the series and which Le Guin wrote as a response to criticism by feminists that her male protagonists were all powerful, and female characters merely helpers, an elderly woman and a young girl were featured. According to Charlotte Spivack in her appraisal, Ursula Le Guin, "Earthsea is a convincingly authenticated world, drawn with a sure hand for fine detail. [It is a] mature narrative of growing up, a moral tale without a moral, a realistic depiction of a fantasy world."

In addition to her prolific career as an author, Le Guin has taught writing workshops at numerous colleges around the United States, as well as in Australia and Great Britain. She has also revised several of her early works, updating them in response to her growing feminist leanings. She has also been involved in the adaptation of several of her novels into motion pictures. The Public Television production of The Lathe of Heaven, in 1980, benefited from her adaptation of her own novel-the story about a man whose dreams alter reality-as well as her on-the-set production assistance. Le Guin's positive appraisal of the resulting film was a marked contrast to most authors' feelings about their work after a film crew gets through with it. The recipient of numerous awards, she continued to make her home in Oregon.

Further Reading

Bittner, James, Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, UMI Research Press, 1984.

Bleiler, E.F., editor, Science Fiction Writers, Scribner's, 1982.

Cogell, Elizabeth Cummings, Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin, University of South Carolina Press, 1990.

Feminist Writers, St. James Press, 1997.

Greenburg, Martin H., and Joseph D. Olander, Ursula Le Guin, Taplinger, 1979.

Slusser, George Edgar, The Farthest Shores of Ursula K. Le Guin, Borgo Press, 1976.

Spivack, Charlotte, Ursula Le Guin, Twayne, 1984.

Science-Fiction Studies, March 1976.

For more information on Ursula Kroeber Le Guin, visit Britannica.com.

Le Guin, Ursula (1929– ), American author. She is probably most famous for her brilliant fantasy novels for children: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1971), and The Farthest Shore (1972). In 1990, 18 years later, a fourth and final volume of the story, Tehanu, appeared.

The Earthsea books draw on many of the conventions of the fairy story and the quest tale. They take place in an imaginary island archipelago where magic exists and is practised by both official wizards and village witches. In the first three volumes, the boy Ged, who travels to distant lands and overcomes both internal and external obstacles to become a famous wizard, is a central character.

The final volume of the series, Tehanu, as Le Guin has said, marks a shift in her vision of the world away from the male tradition of heroic fantasy. Here, as in many European fairy tales, it is women who have supernatural ability; and their magic is of a very different sort. The emphasis is on knowledge, kindness, and patience, rather than strength and violence, as a way of defeating evil.

Among other features of the Earthsea books that recall fairy tales are the magic power of names and naming (as in ‘Rumpelstiltskin’), and the animal helpers: dragons whose ancient wisdom aids the protagonists. Le Guin has also written some remarkable variations on classic fairy tales, such as ‘The Poacher’ (1996), in which a peasant boy chops his way through the thorny hedge surrounding Sleeping Beauty's castle, but decides not to wake her.

Bibliography

• Attebery, Brian, ‘Gender, Fantasy, and the Authority of Tradition’, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 7.1(25) (1996).
• Hatfield, Len, ‘From Master to Brother: Shifting the Balance of Authority in Ursula K. Le Guin's Farthest Shore and Tehanu’, Children's Literature, 21 (1993).
• McLean, Susan, ‘The Power of Women in Ursula K. Le Guin's Tehanu’, Extrapolation, 38.2 (summer 1997).
• Reid, Suzanne Elizabeth, Presenting Ursula K. Le Guin (1997).

— Alison Lurie

(ûr'sələ krō'bər lə gwĭn') , 1929–, American writer, b. Berkeley, Calif.; daughter of anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber. Possessing a keen eye for physical and cultural detail, she uses science fiction to explore contemporary society. A prolific writer of both adult and children's fiction, she gained fame beginning in the 1960s with her series of books about beings from Hain, including Rocannon's World (1966), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974), and The Telling (2000). She is also known for her cycle of Earthsea books, such as A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1971), Tehanu (1990), and Tales from Earthsea (2001). Le Guin is also an essayist and poet.

(b. 1929)

1968	A Wizard of Earthsea. Le Guin launches her best-known fantasy series, following the life of Ged, who rises from goatherd to become a great wizard, fusing fantasy and magic with commonplace concerns. It would be followed by The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), and Tehanu (1990). The daughter of the eminent anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber, Le Guin graduated from Radcliffe and lived for a time in France before settling in Portland, Oregon, where she began her career as a science fiction and fantasy writer.
1969	The Left Hand of Darkness. Le Guin's much-admired, controversial science fiction novel is set on a distant, frozen planet populated by hermaphrodites. Widely considered her most significant book, it looks at gender relations from a unique Taoist perspective.
1974	The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. One of Le Guin's best-known and admired science fiction novels concerns a physicist trying to reconcile the cultural conflicts between his home planet and the one he is exploring. The novel wins the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Jupiter Award for best novel.

(1929-)

Whether she writes within the genres of children's books, young adult realism and fantasy, or adult science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin is considered by many to be one of the most creative authors working today. She is best known for her fantasy fiction, particularly the acclaimed "Earthsea" books, but her science fiction novels have also won her a wide following. According to Brian Attebery, writing in Dictionary of Literary Biography, "Le Guin's fiction is extraordinarily risky: it is full of hypotheses about morality, love, society, and ways of enriching life expressed in the symbolic language found in myth, dream, or poetry."

Le Guin was born in 1929, to Theodora and Alfred Kroeber. Her father was a professor of anthropology at the University of California and her mother was a writer. Le Guin once recalled that their summer house was "an old, tumble-down ranch in the Napa Valley . . . [and] a gathering place for scientists, writers, students, and California Indians. Even though I didn't pay much attention, I heard a lot of interesting, grown-up conversation." She also grew up hearing a variety of Native American tales from her father and reading a great deal of mythology; she particularly liked Norse myths.

Le Guin has three older brothers, but she feels her upbringing was totally nonsexist, as her parents expected the same achievements of her as of her brothers. Her home was also nonreligious. As she once related, "There was no religious practice of any kind. There was also no feeling that any religion was better than another or worse; they just weren't part of our life. They were something other people did." Eventually, Le Guin developed to a strong respect for Taoism, the Eastern religion of acceptance and change. The impact of the Taoist text I Ching has influenced many of her books, and she published a translation of it, Lao Tzu: Tao The Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, in 1997.

Le Guin's books are also informed by her feminism and her progressive views about social relationships. Though her early works focused mostly on male heroes, she eventually began portraying women in central, actionoriented roles. The Left Hand of Darkness is set in a world where people have no fixed gender, but become male or female when they desire sexual activity. Le Guin has also dealt with issues of race—The Lathe of Heaven, for instance, has a romance between a white man and a black woman—and sexual preference. These aspects of her writing have been revolutionary in science fiction, often seen, as Book writer Ellen Emry Heltzel noted, as "a white, male enclave reflecting its original base of readers." In Heltzel's view, Le Guin "is sensitive to issues of race, class and gender and is among a generation of writers who have elevated the role of human feeling in the formerly hard-wired SF field."

As children, Le Guin and one of her brothers enjoyed Amazing Stories, a short-story magazine. She made her first short story submission at the age of twelve to the magazine, but the story was rejected. "It was all right with me," she once said. "It was junk. At least I had a real rejection slip to show for it." While Le Guin always thought of herself as a writer, after completing her bachelor's degree at Radcliffe, she decided to follow her father's advice and find a marketable career. She studied Romance languages with the intent of teaching and earned her master's degree from Columbia University. She was pursuing a doctorate in French and Italian renaissance literature on a Fulbright fellowship when she met Charles Le Guin. Both were traveling to France via the Queen Mary. "We had a shipboard romance and, as the French have developed bureaucracy into a way of life, spent our first six months trying to marry," Le Guin recalled. After returning to the States, the couple moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her husband taught at Emory University and Le Guin worked as a secretary and wrote. She spent the next several years balancing part-time work, writing, and family, which came to include three children: Elisabeth, Caroline, and Theodore. The family eventually settled in Portland, Oregon.

During the 1950s, Le Guin wrote five novels, four of which were set in the imaginary country of Orsinia, but she was unable to find a publisher willing to take a risk on her unusual style. She finally turned to the science fiction/fantasy genre in order to get into print. Her first sale was a time travel fantasy to Fantastic Stories and Imagination magazine. Le Guin noted that developing a science fiction style took time: she called her first published novels "fairy tales in space suits." These initial works are part of the "Hainish Cycle" and branch off from a central idea: that humanity came from the planet Hain, which colonized several other planets and eventually became separated by a galactic war. The cycle includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Word for World Is Forest, The Telling, and some short stories.

In the late 1960s, editor Herman Schein of Parnassus Press asked Le Guin to write a novel for eleven to seventeen year olds. The result was the fantasy A Wizard of Earthsea. The book deals with the adventures of the apprentice sorcerer, Ged. Critics praised the novel both for its story and the complexity of Le Guin's created world, which consists of a chain of islands. Many compared Earthsea to J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth and C. S. Lewis's Narnia. In Horn Book, Eleanor Cameron wrote: "To me, it is as if Ursula Le Guin herself has lived on the Archipelago, minutely observing and noting down the habits and idiosyncrasies of the culture from island to island.... Nothing has escaped the notice of her imagination's seeking eye."

Le Guin followed A Wizard of Earthsea with a darker novel set in the same world: The Tombs of Atuan. Tenar, its protagonist and her first major female character, is a young priestess who discovers Ged wandering through sacred places forbidden to anyone but the priestesses and their eunuchs. Tenar's life changes through this meeting; Le Guin once described the story as "a feminine coming of age." The Farthest Shore, for many years the last book of the series, "is about the thing you do not live through and survive," Le Guin continued. The plot concerns Ged as a mature wizard, who journeys with a young prince to the westernmost end of the world to discover why Earthsea is losing its magic. There, Ged meets his ultimate challenge. The Farthest Shore won the National Book Award for Children's Literature, and in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Andrew Gordon called it "a novel of epic scope." Salon.com contributor Faith L. Justice noted of the "Earthsea" novels, "On the surface these are coming-of-age stories . . . but Le Guin's artful storytelling and complex underlying themes elevate the works beyond mundane fantasy and the young-adult audience for which they are intended." The characters learn "the need for balance—light/dark, male/female, action/inaction," Justice commented.

In 1990, Le Guin published a new novel in the "Earthsea" series, the first Earthsea novel to appear in nearly twenty years. Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea deals less with the magic of wizards than the importance of everyday life. In the novel, Tenar, now a farmer's widow, finds a little girl who has been raped by her father and his friends and left to die. Tenar adopts the child and is eventually joined by Ged, who arrives drained of power and strength. The three form an unlikely family who battle an unexpected threat to Tenar's island home. "Tenahu is a book of great depth and subtlety, . . . confronting and altering the bedrock values of the old high fantasy on which the first Earthsea books were based," observed Jill Paton Walsh in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers. "It rejects the male-gendered tales of heroism, and in their place builds on women's experiences as the benchmarks of virtue, courage, love. The damaged child is at the centre of the book, and the triumph over evil is hers."

Le Guin returned to the world of Earthsea with the story collection Tales from Earthsea and the novel The Other Wind. The former includes a tale of the origins of the magic school at which Ged studied, plus four other stories and a background essay on Earthsea. Tales from Earthsea "not only stands alone but also serves as an introduction to new readers," commented Jackie Cassada in Library Journal, and Chris Barsanti of Book praised the stories as "delightfully crafted mini epics." Though remarking that many years passed between titles in the series, Booklist contributor Sally Estes commented, "Le Guin hasn't lost her touch." In The Other Wind, a sorcerer's longing for his deceased wife starts to weaken the barrier between the living and the dead and causes other disruptions in Earthsea. "The first full-length Earthsea novel since Tehanu will leave its readers wanting yet another," praised Estes in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that while in Tehanu, "Le Guin rethought the traditional connection between gender and magic," in The Other Wind, "she reconsiders the relationship between magic and something even more basic: life and death itself."

Very Far Away from Anywhere Else is Le Guin's first non-fantasy young adult novel. It describes the deepening relationship between two extremely talented but lonely, nonconformist teenagers, Owen and Natalie. Their relationship is jeopardized when Owen makes sexual advances toward Natalie. "Le Guin's admirers have objected to the didactic tone of this book, which is undoubtedly present as it is in so many other adolescent novels," related Walsh. "But the rage which is palpable in the book—alongside a lot of human tenderness—is not really against the corrupting pressure on the young to advance too quickly into their sexual adulthood, rather it is against all the pressures by which individuals in their glorious oddity and variety are crushed into a few standard shapes by a society that hates nonconformity." The Beginning Place, written a few years later, is considered by some critics a more successful novel. It mixes fantasy and reality in the story of two young adults who, at different times, discover a strange world on the borders of their dull suburb. Gordon believed "the achievement of The Beginning Place is its vivid, detailed realism, which brings alive both the plastic suburb and the haunting twilight land and makes us believe in the possibility of crossing the threshold between the two."

In the late 1970s, Le Guin started working in a new genre: children's storybooks and picture books. Leese Webster relates the story of a talented spider. According to Gordon, "The story shows Le Guin's style . . . at its best. . . . The message is clear: it is a parable about the artist and her craft." A Visit from Dr. Katz is a picture book showing how a sick little girl is amused by two kittens. Fire and Stone tells about a dragon who eats stones instead of people, while in Fish Soup, two adults have differing visions of the perfect child—and see their fantasies become reality.

Catwings and its follow-ups, Catwings Return, Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings, and Jane on Her Own: A Catwings Tale, feature the adventures of several winged cats and are perhaps the best known of Le Guin's works for younger readers. In Catwings, four flying cats—Harriet, James, Thelma, and Roger—escape city dangers to live in the country, where they are adopted by two children. New York Times Book Review contributor Crescent Dragonwagon wrote that Le Guin's "dialogue, humor, skill as a storyteller, and emotional veracity combine near-flawlessly in a story that is both contemporary and timeless.... [T]heir collective winged adventures, their looking after one another, and the understated charm of Ms. Le Guin's writing keeps us captivated." The cats continue to have adventures in the next several books; in Jane on Her Own, Jane travels to the city in search of new experiences. When she is trapped by a man who wants to exploit her by putting her on television shows, Jane must find a way to escape. Carolyn Phelan and Jack Helbig of Booklist praised Le Guin's "consistently catlike point of view" in a story dealing with "loneliness, belonging, and freedom."

A Ride on the Red Mare's Back, a stand alone book for younger children, looks at the issue of responsibility. In it, a young girl learns that her little brother has been taken by trolls, and she goes out alone to rescue him, taking only a toy red horse, a warm scarf, knitting needles and yarn, and a bit of bread. Once she locates the boy in the trolls' castle, she finds that he has changed: he now wants to become a troll. "The boy's desire is an old one," Michael Dirda explained in Washington Post Book World: "Is it better to be a happy pig or an unhappy Socrates? Most of us don't get the chance to be quite either." Dirda concluded that the volume "is indisputably suspenseful, thought-provoking, and beautifully illustrated."

In Tom Mouse, a picture book published in 2002, Le Guin introduces her readers to a mouse who wants to see the world. The mouse—named Tom—leaves his family to travel across the country by train. When a businesswoman takes up residence in the sleeping car that Tom had had to himself, he hides from her. Gradually, however, Tom realizes that he has been discovered and that the woman sees him as a friend. Tom Mouse was called a "celebration of the open road and the kindness of strangers" by a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. Writing for Horn Book, Susan P. Bloom thought "this tale of comradeship between two otherwise lonely globetrotters has an inviting freshness in its quiet telling."

Reviewers have praised the variety, force, and depth that Le Guin brings to her writing for children and for adults. "Hers is certainly one of the most powerful talents ever exercised in writing for the young," Walsh remarked. Le Guin believes that children's imaginations need to be nourished, and that fantasy plays an important part in their development. Gordon quoted her as stating, "I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child, and that if these faculties are encouraged in youth they will act well and wisely in the adult."

Career

Writer. Worked as a department secretary, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Part-time instructor in French at Mercer University, Macon, GA, 1954-55, and University of Idaho, Moscow, 1956. Visiting lecturer and writer-in-residence at various locations, including Portland State University, University of California—San Diego, University of Reading (England), Kenyon College, Tulane University, and First Australian workshop in Speculative Fiction. Creative consultant for Public Broadcasting Service, for television production of The Lathe of Heaven, 1979.

Member

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Authors League of America, Writers Guild, PEN, Science Fiction Research Association, Science Fiction Writers Association, Science Fiction Poetry Association, Writers Guild West, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Amnesty International of the USA, Nature Conservancy, National Organization for Women, National Abortion Rights Action League, Phi Beta Kappa.

Awards, Honors

National Fulbright fellowship, 1953; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, 1968; Nebula Award nomination for best novelette, Science Fiction Writers of America (now Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), 1969, for "Nine Lives"; Nebula Award and Hugo Award, International Science Fiction Association, both for best novel, 1970, for The Left Hand of Darkness; Nebula Award nomination, 1971, and Hugo Award nomination and Locus Award, both 1973, all for best novel, for The Lathe of Heaven; Newbery Silver Medal Award and finalist for National Book Award for Children's Literature, both 1972, for The Tombs of Atuan; Nebula Award nomination, 1972, and Hugo Award, 1973, both for best novella, for The Word for World Is Forest; National Book Award for Children's Books, 1973, for The Farthest Shore; Hugo Award for best short story, 1974, for "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"; American Library Association's Best Young Adult Books citation, 1974, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and Jupiter Award, all for best novel, 1975, and Jules Verne Award, 1975, all for The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia; Nebula Award and Jupiter Award, both for best short story, 1975, for "The Day before the Revolution"; Nebula Award nomination for best novelette, 1975, for "The New Atlantis"; Nebula Award nomination for best novelette and Jupiter Award, both 1976, for "The Diary of the Rose"; Prix Lectures-Jeunesse, 1978, for Very Far Away from Anywhere Else; Gandalf Award (Grand Master of Fantasy) nomination, 1978; D.Litt., Bucknell University, 1978, and Lawrence University, 1979; Gandalf Award, 1979; Nebula Award nomination for best novelette, 1979, for "The Pathways of Desire"; D.H.L., Lewis and Clark College, 1983, and Occidental College, 1985; Locus Award, 1984, for The Compass Rose; American Book Award nomination, 1985, and Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, University of Rochester English Department and Writer's Workshop, 1986, both for Always Coming Home; Nebula Award nominations for best novelette, 1988, for Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight, and 1990, for "The Shobies' Story"; Hugo Award for best novelette, 1988, and World Fantasy Award for best novella, World Fantasy Convention, 1988, both for Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight; Nebula Award for best novel, 1991, for Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea; Nebula Award nomination for best novelette, 1994, and James Tiptree, Jr. Award, 1995, both for "The Matter of Seggri"; Nebula Award nomination for best novella, 1994, and Sturgeon Award, both for "Forgiveness Day;" Nebula Award for best novelette, 1996, for "Solitude;" Life Achievement Award, World Fantasy Convention, 1995; James Tiptree, Jr. Award, 1997, for "Mountain Ways"; Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, Adult Literature (finalist), World Fantasy Award in novel category, and Nebula Award nomination in novel category, all 2002, all for The Other Wind; Nebula Award Grand Master, 2002; PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction, 2002; Hugo Award nomination in best novelette category, Locus Award, and Asimov's Readers Award, all 2003, for "The Wild Girls"; Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement, Young Adult Library Services Association, 2004; May Hill Arbuthnot Lecturer, Association for Library Service to Children, 2004.

Writings

For Children

• Solomon Leviathan's Nine Hundred Thirty-first Trip around the World (originally published in collection Puffin's Pleasures; also see below), illustrated by Alicia Austin, Puffin Books (London, England), 1976, Cheap Street (New Castle, VA), 1983.
• Leese Webster, illustrated by James Brunsman, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1979.
• Adventures in Kroy, Cheap Street (New Castle, VA), 1982.
• The Adventures of Cobbler's Rune, illustrated by Alicia Austin, Cheap Street (New Castle, VA), 1983.
• A Visit from Dr. Katz (picture book), illustrated by Ann Barrow, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1988.
• Fire and Stone, illustrated by Laura Marshell, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1989.
• Fish Soup (picture book), illustrated by Patrick Wynne, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1992.
• A Ride on the Red Mare's Back (picture book), illustrated by Julie Downing, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1992.
• Tom Mouse, illustrated by Julie Downing, Roaring Brook Press (Brookfield, CT), 2002.

"Earthsea" Series

• A Wizard of Earthsea (also see below), illustrated by Ruth Robbins, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1968.
• The Tombs of Atuan (also see below), illustrated by Gall Garraty, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1970.
• The Farthest Shore (also see below), illustrated by Gall Garraty, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1972.
• Earthsea (includes A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore), Gollancz (London, England), 1977, published as The Earthsea Trilogy, Penguin (London, England), 1979.
• Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1990.
• Tales from Earthsea, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2001.
• The Other Wind, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2001.

"Catwings" Series

• Catwings, illustrated by S. D. Schindler, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1988.
• Catwings Return, illustrated by S. D. Schindler, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1989.
• Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings, illustrated by S. D. Schindler, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1994.
• Jane on Her Own: A Catwings Tale, illustrated by S. D. Schindler, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Novels

• Rocannon's World (bound with The Kar-Chee Reign by Avram Davidson; also see below), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1966.
• Planet of Exile (bound with Mankind under the Lease by Thomas M. Disch; also see below), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1966.
• City of Illusions (also see below), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1967.
• The Left Hand of Darkness, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1969, with new afterword and appendixes by author, Walker (New York, NY), 1994.
• The Lathe of Heaven, Scribner (New York, NY), 1971, reprinted, Perennial Classics (New York, NY), 2003.
• The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, Harper (New York, NY), 1974, reprinted, Perennial Classics (New York, NY), 2003.
• Very Far Away from Anywhere Else, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1976, published as A Very Long Way from Anywhere Else, Gollancz (London, England), 1976.
• Three Hainish Novels (includes Rocannon's World Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions; also see below), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1978.
• Malafrena, Putnam (New York, NY), 1979.
• The Beginning Place, Harper (New York, NY), 1980, published as Threshold, Gollancz (London, England), 1980.
• The Eye of the Heron and Other Stories (includes novella originally published in collection Millennial Women; also see below), Harper (New York, NY), 1983.
• The Visionary (bound with Wonders Hidden, by Scott R. Sanders), McGraw (New York, NY), 1984.
• Always Coming Home (includes tape cassette of "Music and Poetry of the Kesh"; also see below), music by Todd Barton, illustrated by Margaret Chodos, diagrams by George Hersh, Harper (New York, NY), 1985, published without cassette, Bantam (New York, NY), 1987.
• Worlds of Exile and Illusion (includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions), Orb (New York, NY), 1996.
• The Telling, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2000.
• Gifts, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2004.

Poetry

• Wild Angels (collection of early works), Capra (Santa Barbara, CA), 1974.
• (With mother, Theodora K. Quinn) Tillai and Tylissos, Red Bull, 1979.
• Torrey Pines Reserve (broadsheet), Lord John (Northridge, CA), 1980.
• Hard Words and Other Poems, Harper (New York, NY), 1981.
• (With Henk Pander) In the Red Zone, Lord John (Northridge, CA), 1983.
• Wild Oats and Fireweed, Harper (New York, NY), 1988.
• Blue Moon over Thurman Street, photographs by Roger Dorband, NewSage Press (Portland, OR), 1993.
• Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight, illustrated by Susan Seddon Boulet, Pomegranate Artbooks (San Francisco, CA), 1994.
• Going Out with Peacocks and Other Poems, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 1994.
• (With Diana Bellessi) The Twins, The Dream: Two Voices / Las Gemelas, el Sueño: Dos Voces, Arte Público (Houston, TX), 1997.
• Sixty Odd: New Poems, Shambhala (Boston, MA), 1999.

Short Stories

• The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Harper (New York, NY), 1975.
• Orsinian Tales, Harper (New York, NY), 1976.
• The Water Is Wide, Pendragon Press (Portland, OR), 1976.
• The Compass Rose, Harper (New York, NY), 1982.
• Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences (short stories and poems), Capra (Santa Barbara, CA), 1987.
• Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Creative Education (Mankato, MN), 1993.
• A Fisherman of the Inland Sea: Science Fiction Stories, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1994.
• Four Ways to Forgiveness (contains "Betrayals," "Forgiveness Day," "A Man of the People," and "A Woman's Liberation"), HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1995.
• Unlocking the Air: And Other Stories (contains "Standing Ground," "Poacher," "Half Past Four," and "Limberlost"), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1996.
• The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (contains "Coming of Age in Karhide," "The Matter of Seggri," "Unchosen Love," "Mountain Ways," "Solitude," "Old Music and the Slave Women," "The Birthday of the World," and "Paradises Lost"), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002.
• Changing Planes (contains "Sita Dulip's Method," "Porridge on Islac," "The Silence of the Asonu," "Feeling at Home with the Hennebet," "The Ire of the Veksi," "Seasons of the Ansarac," "Social Dreaming of the Frin," "The Royals of Hegn," "Woeful Tales from Mahigul," "Great Joy," "Wake Island," "The Nna Mmoy Language," "The Building," "The Fliers of Gy," "The Island of the Immortals," and "Confusions of Uñi"), Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2003.

Editor

• Nebula Award Stories 11, Gollancz (London, England), 1976, Harper (New York, NY), 1977.
• (With Virginia Kidd) Interfaces: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1980.
• (With Virginia Kidd) Edges: Thirteen New Tales from the Borderlands of the Imagination, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1980.
• (With Brian Attebery) The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990, Norton (New York, NY), 1993.
• H. G. Wells, Selected Stories of H. G. Wells, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2004.

Translator

• (Translator, with J. P. Seaton) Lao Tzu: Tao The Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, Shambhala (Boston, MA), 1997.
• Gabriela Mistral, Gabriela Mistral: Selected Poems, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 2003.
• Angelica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was, Small Beer Press (Northampton, MA), 2003.

Other

• From Elfland to Poughkeepsie (lecture), Pendragon Press (Portland, OR), 1973.
• Dreams Must Explain Themselves (critical essays), Algol Press (New York, NY), 1975.
• The Word for World Is Forest (novella; originally published in collection Again, Dangerous Visions; also see below), Berkley (New York, NY), 1976.
• The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Susan Wood, Putnam (New York, NY), 1978, revised edition edited by Le Guin, Women's Press (London, England), 1989.
• King Dog: A Screenplay (bound with Dostoevsky: A Screenplay, by Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher), Capra (Santa Barbara, CA), 1985.
• (With Todd Barton) Music and Poetry of the Kesh (cassette), Valley Productions, 1985.
• (With David Bedford) Rigel Nine: An Audio Opera, Charisma, 1985.
• Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (essays), Grove (New York, NY), 1989.
• The Way of the Waters Going: Images of the Northern California Coastal Range, photographs by Ernest Waugh and Alan Nicolson, Harper (New York, NY), 1989.
• Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction, Pulphouse, 1991.
• Talk about Writing, Pulphouse, 1991.
• Earthsea Revisioned (lecture), Children's Literature New England (Cambridge, MA), 1993.
• (Author of text) Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts (music sound recording; for chorus and orchestra), music by Elinor Armer, Koch International (Port Washington, NY), 1995.
• Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew, Eighth Mountain Press (Portland, OR), 1998.
• The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Reader, and the Imagination, Shambhala (Boston, MA), 2004.
• Contributor to anthologies, including Orbit 5, 1969; Orbit 6, 1970; Best SF: 1969, 1970; World's Best Science Fiction, 1970; Those Who Can, 1970; Nebula Award Stories 5, 1970; Quark #1, 1970; The Dead Astronaut, 1971; New Dimensions I, 1972; Clarion II, 1972; Again, Dangerous Visions, Volume 1, 1972; The Best from Playboy, number 7, 1973; New Dimensions III, 1973; Clarion III, 1973; Universe 5, 1974; The Best from Galaxy, Volume 2, 1974, Volume 3, 1975; Dream Trips, 1974; Orbit 14, 1974; Epoch, 1975; Nebula Award Stories 10, 1975; The New Atlantis and Other Novellas of Science Fiction, 1975; The Thorny Paradise, 1975; Bitches and Sad Ladies, 1975; More Women of Wonder, 1976; The Best Science Fiction of the Year #5, 1976; Science Fiction at Large, 1976, 1977; Future Power, 1976; Puffin's Pleasure, 1976; Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year, Sixth Annual Collection, 1977; Psy Fi One, 1977; The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 1978; The Altered I: An Encounter with Science Fiction, 1978; Millennial Women, 1978; Cassandra Rising, 1978; and Dark Imaginings, 1978. Author of postcard short story, Post Card Partnership, 1975, and Sword & Sorcery Annual, 1975.
• Contributor of short stories, novellas, essays, and reviews to numerous science-fiction, scholarly, and popular periodicals, including Science Fiction Studies, New Yorker, Antaeus, Parabola, New Republic, Redbook, Playgirl, Playboy, New Yorker, Yale Review, and Omni. Author of abridged version of The Left Hand of Darkness, for Warner Audio, 1985. Le Guin recorded Gwilan's Harp and Intracom for Caedmon, 1977, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and Other Stories and The Lathe of Heaven for Alternate World, 1976, and The Left Hand of Darkness for Warner Audio.

Adaptations

The Lathe of Heaven was adapted by Diane English and Roger Swaybill into a film directed by Fred Barzyk and David R. Loxton and televised by Public Broadcasting Service, 1979. A new version, with screenplay by Alan Sharp and direction by Philip Haas, was produced by A&E Television Networks. The "Earthsea" books were adapted by Gavin Scott into a mini-series epic, produced by Hallmark Entertainment for the SCI FI Channel, 2004. The Tombs of Atuan was adapted as a filmstrip with record or audiocassette by Newbery Award Records, 1980; "The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas" was performed as a drama with dance and music at the Portland Civic Theatre, 1981. A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, and The Beginning Place were made into sound recordings, 1992.

Biographical and Critical Sources

Books

• Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 9, 1992, Volume 27, 1998.
• Bittner, James, Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, UMI Research Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1984.
• Bucknall, Barbara, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ungar (New York, NY), 1981.
• Butts, Dennis, Good Writers for Young Readers, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1977.
• Children's Literature Review, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 3, 1978, Volume 28, 1992.
• Cogell, Elizabeth Cummins, Ursula K. Le Guin: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, G. K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1983.
• Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 8, 1978, Volume 13, 1980, Volume 22, 1982, Volume 45, 1987, Volume 71, 1992.
• Contemporary Novelists, 6th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.
• Cummins, Elizabeth, Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1990.
• De Bolt, Joe, editor, Ursula K. Le Guin: Voyager to Inner Lands and to Outer Space, Kennikat Press (Port Washington, NY), 1979.
• Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 8: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers, Part 1, 1981, pp. 263-280, Volume 52: American Writers for Children since 1960: Fiction, 1986, pp. 233-241.
• Haviland, Virginia, editor, The Openhearted Audience: Ten Authors Talk about Writing for Children, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1980.
• Kroeber, Theodora, Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1970.
• Olander, Joseph D., and Martin Harry Greenberg, editors, Ursula K. Le Guin, Taplinger (New York, NY), 1979.
• Reginald, Robert, and George Edgar Slusser, editors, Zephyr and Boreas: Winds of Change in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1996.
• Reid, Suzanne Elizabeth, Presenting Ursula K. Le Guin, "Twayne's United States Authors" series, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.
• St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.
• Silvey, Anita, editor, Children's Books and Their Creators, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1995.
• Slusser, George Edgar, The Farthest Shores of Ursula K. Le Guin, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1976.
• Slusser, George Edgar, Between Two Worlds: The Literary Dilemma of Ursula K. Le Guin, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1995.
• Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1994.

Periodicals

• Book, September-October, 2000, Ellen Emry Heltzel, "Portland Trailblazer: Ursula K. Le Guin"; May, 2001, Chris Barsanti, review of Tales from Earthsea, p. 71.
• Booklist, February 1, 1999, Carolyn Phelan and Jack Helbig, review of Jane on Her Own: A Catwings Tale, p. 974; March 1, 2001, Sally Estes, review of Tales from Earthsea, p. 1233; June 1, 2001, Sally Estes, review of The Other Wind, p. 1798; February 1, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Reader, and the Imagination, p. 942.
• Horn Book, April, 1971, Eleanor Cameron, "High Fantasy: A Wizard of Earthsea," pp. 129-138; October, 1971; June, 1973; May-June, 2002, Susan P. Bloom, review of Tom Mouse, p. 316.
• Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2002, review of Tom Mouse, p. 260.
• Library Journal, May 15, 2001, Jackie Cassada, review of Tales from Earthsea, p. 166; July, 2001, Jackie Cassada, review of The Other Wind, p. 130; September 15, 2003, review of Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was, p. 91.
• New York Times Book Review, September 29, 1985; November 13, 1988, Crescent Dragonwagon, review of Catwings; May 20, 1990, p. 38; October 15, 1995; March 3, 1996, p. 10; May 12, 1996, p. 27.
• Publishers Weekly, January 19, 1990, review of Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, p. 110; August 10, 1992, review of A Ride on the Red Mare's Back, p. 70; October 5, 1992, review of Fish Soup, p. 71; September 25, 1995, Sara Jameson, "Ursula K. Le Guin: A Galaxy of Books and Laurels," p. 32; August 13, 2001, review of The Other Wind, p. 290.
• School Library Journal, April, 1999, Anne Conner, review of Jane on Her Own, p. 101; May, 2002, Kathie Meizner, review of Tom Mouse, p. 120.
• Times Literary Supplement, April 16, 1971; April 28, 1972.
• Washington Post Book World, October 6, 1985; January 29, 1989; February 25, 1990; August 9, 1992, Michael Dirda, review of A Ride on the Red Mare's Back, p. 11.

Online

• Salon.com,http://www.salon.com/ (January 23, 2001), Faith L. Justice, "Ursula K. Le Guin."
• Ursula K. Le Guin Web Site,http://www.ursulakleguin.com/ (February 24, 2004).*

Quotes:

"Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance. Old age is similarly a waiting room, where you go after life's over and wait for cancer or a stroke. The years before and after the menstrual years are vestigial: the only meaningful condition left to women is that of fruitfulness."

"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it."

"When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep."

"He is far too intelligent to become really cerebral."

"Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development."

"Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language."

See more famous quotes by Ursula K. Le Guin