Ursula k le guin biographical sketch

To this world comes Genly Ai, an emissary from the Ekumen, an alliance of human worlds who has come to Gethen to convince the world to join the Ekumen. Genly must confront not only his own gender biases, but navigate the complex code of shifgrethor, and the numerous layers of political intrigue that surround him. The year between the two Earthsea sequels, Le Guin published The Lathe of Heaven Scribners , an alternate-reality story neatly meshed with elements of Taoist philosophy.

This idea developed into perhaps her most well-known novel, The Dispossessed Harper , the story of a brilliant scientist at odds with his utopian anarchist society. The novel is one of the best, if not the best, fictional realization of an anarchist society as it might be practiced, and remains one of the most influential modern utopian novels written.

The Dispossessed was awarded both the Hugo and Nebula awards for its year, making Le Guin the first author to win both awards twice for novels. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own. I drew a picture of a Catwing. About Ursula K. Le Guin. Her works have been a focus on intense critical attention. Le Guin gave birth to three children and eventually settled in Oregon.

They lived in Portland for decades. Even though Le Guin was brought up in the non-religious household, she also took an interest in the spiritual traditions of the East of Buddhism and Taoism. She took an entirely different perspective with the ideals of Taoism when she was hunting for the sense of the world. On 22 nd January , Le Guin died at her home in Portland, at the age of Though there was no apparent cause for death, one of her sons mentioned that she had been in poor health for months.

Right from her childhood and youth, Le Guin has been studying classic and speculative fiction. Until she has started reading the works of Cordwainer and Smith, Science fiction did not seem to have a great influence on her. As a child, she would smirk at the genre. Dick, and Boris Pasternak. Le Guin also regarded that her style has been greatly influenced by Leo Tolstoy and J.

Instead of reading the well-known authors of science fiction such as Robert Heinlein, she would prefer reading Jorge Luis Borges and Virginia Woolf. The influence of Greek and Roman mythology is greatly seen among the works of Le Guin. The works of Le Guin have been greatly influenced by the discipline of cultural studies and anthropology. Being the director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, he carried out different research.

As a result of this research, Le Guin was greatly exposed to cultural exploration and anthropology. Le Guin also mentions the experiences of Ishi in her works. The elements of the story of Ishi found in her works, such as Planet of Exile. Many critics and scholars also argue that the writings of Le Guin were also influenced by the works of Carl Yung , particularly the theory of archetypes.

For example, in A Wizard of Earthsea, the shadow is seen as the archetypal Shadow from Jungian psychology, which represents the fear, pride, and desire for power of Ged. Le Guin". She later wrote that it was the first and only time she had experienced prejudice against her as a woman writer from an editor or publisher, and reflected that "it seemed so silly, so grotesque, that I failed to see that it was also important.

Le Guin's next two books brought her sudden and widespread critical acclaim. A Wizard of Earthsea , published in , was a fantasy novel written initially for teenagers. Her next novel, The Left Hand of Darkness , was a Hainish universe story exploring themes of gender and sexuality on a fictional planet where humans have no fixed sex. Le Guin continued to develop themes of equilibrium and coming-of-age in the next two installments of the Earthsea series, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore , published in and , respectively.

Scholar Charlotte Spivack described it as representing a shift in Le Guin's science fiction towards discussing political ideas. Le Guin published a variety of work in the second half of the s. This included speculative fiction in the form of the novel The Eye of the Heron , which, according to Le Guin, may be a part of the Hainish universe. Though the latter two were set in the fictional country of Orsinia, the stories were realistic fiction rather than fantasy or science fiction.

Between , when she published Malafrena , and , when the collection A Fisherman of the Inland Sea was released, Le Guin wrote primarily for a younger audience. It received critical praise, [ 79 ] won Le Guin a third Nebula Award for Best Novel, [ 80 ] and led to the series being recognized among adult literature. Le Guin returned to the Hainish Cycle in the s after a lengthy hiatus with the publication of a series of short stories, beginning with " The Shobies' Story " in All five of the stories explored freedom and rebellion within a slave society.

From onwards several collections and anthologies of Le Guin's work were published. A series of her stories from the period — was released in in the collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories , along with the novella Paradises Lost. Other works from this period included Lavinia , based on a character from Virgil 's Aeneid , [ 92 ] and the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy, consisting of Gifts , Voices , and Powers Once I learned to read, I read everything.

I adored Kipling's Jungle Book. And then when I got older I found Lord Dunsany. He opened up a whole new world — the world of pure fantasy. Worm Ouroboros. Again, pure fantasy. Very, very fattening. And then my brother and I blundered into science fiction when I was 11 or Early Asimov , things like that. But that didn't have too much effect on me.

It wasn't until I came back to science fiction and discovered Sturgeon — but particularly Cordwainer Smith. I read the story " Alpha Ralpha Boulevard ", and it just made me go, "Wow! This stuff is so beautiful, and so strange, and I want to do something like that. Le Guin read both classic and speculative fiction widely in her youth. She later said that science fiction did not have much impact on her until she read the works of Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith , and that she had sneered at the genre as a child.

Le Guin and Dick attended the same high-school, but did not know each other; Le Guin later described her novel The Lathe of Heaven as an homage to him. Tolkien and Leo Tolstoy to be stylistic influences, and preferred reading Virginia Woolf and Jorge Luis Borges to well-known science-fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein , whose writing she described as being of the "white man conquers the universe" tradition.

The discipline of cultural anthropology had a powerful influence on Le Guin's writing. Several scholars have commented that Le Guin's writing was influenced by Carl Jung , and specifically by the idea of Jungian archetypes. Philosophical Taoism had a large role in Le Guin's world view, [ ] and the influence of Taoist thought can be seen in many of her stories.

The anthropologists of the Hainish universe try not to meddle with the cultures they encounter, while one of the earliest lessons Ged learns in A Wizard of Earthsea is not to use magic unless it is absolutely necessary. This includes an equilibrium between land and sea, implicit in the name "Earthsea", between people and their natural environment, [ ] and a larger cosmic equilibrium, which wizards are tasked with maintaining.

A number of Hainish novels, The Dispossessed prominent among them, explored such a process of reconciliation. Although Le Guin is primarily known for her works of speculative fiction, she also wrote realistic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and several other literary forms, and as a result her work is difficult to classify.

Ursula k le guin biographical sketch

Le Guin herself took exception to this treatment of children's literature , describing it as "adult chauvinist piggery". These stories are ageless because they deal with problems that confront us at any age. Fortunately, though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's.

Variables are the spice of life. Let's say says Mary Shelley that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say says Philip K. Dick that the Allies lost the second world war; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happens In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed.

Several of her works have a premise drawn from sociology , psychology , or philosophy. She argued that the term "soft science fiction" was divisive, and implied a narrow view of what constitutes valid science fiction. The influence of anthropology can be seen in the setting Le Guin chose for a number of her works. Several of her protagonists are anthropologists or ethnologists exploring a world alien to them.

The Hainish subsequently colonized many planets, before losing contact with them, giving rise to varied but related biology and social structure. Other characters, such as Shevek in The Dispossessed , become cultural observers in the course of their journeys on other planets. Several of Le Guin's works have featured stylistic or structural features that were unusual or subversive.

The heterogeneous structure of The Left Hand of Darkness , described as "distinctly post-modern", was unusual for the time of its publication. A number of Le Guin's writings, including the Earthsea series, challenged the conventions of epic fantasies and myths. Many of the protagonists in Earthsea were dark-skinned individuals, in comparison to the white-skinned heroes more traditionally used; some of the antagonists, in contrast, were white-skinned, a switching of race roles that has been remarked upon by multiple critics.

She explained this choice, saying: "most people in the world aren't white. Why in the future would we assume they are? Gender and sexuality are prominent themes in a number of Le Guin's works. The Left Hand of Darkness , published in , was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction , and is the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction.

Le Guin's attitude towards gender and feminism evolved considerably over time. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters, [ 54 ] the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles, [ ] and the portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. Le Guin revisited this essay in , and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; [ 54 ] she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships.

Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in a later reprinting of " Winter's King ", which was first published in Le Guin explores coming of age , and moral development more broadly, in many of her writings.

Le Guin wrote in a essay that she chose to explore coming-of-age in Earthsea since she was writing for an adolescent audience: "Coming of age So do most adolescents. It's their main occupation, in fact. The first three Earthsea novels together follow Ged from youth to old age, and each of them also follow the coming of age of a different character.

Scholar Jeanne Walker writes that the rite of passage at the end was an analogue for the entire plot of A Wizard of Earthsea , and that the plot itself plays the role of a rite of passage for an adolescent reader. Each volume of Annals of the Western Shore also describes the coming of age of its protagonists, [ ] and features explorations of being enslaved to one's own power.

In Gifts , Orrec and Gry realize that the powers their people possess can be used in two ways: for control and dominion, or for healing and nurturing. This recognition allows them to take a third choice, and leave. Alternative social and political systems are a recurring theme in Le Guin's writing. The Dispossessed , set on the twin planets of Urras and Anarres , features a planned anarchist society depicted as an "ambiguous utopia".

The society, created by settlers from Urras, is materially poorer than the wealthy society of Urras, but more ethically and morally advanced. Nonetheless, the misogyny and hierarchy present in the authoritarian society of Urras is absent among the anarchists, who base their social structure on cooperation and individual liberty. Always Coming Home , set in California in the distant future, examines a warlike society, resembling contemporary American society, from the perspective of the Kesh, its pacifist neighbors.

The society of the Kesh has been identified by scholars as a feminist utopia, which Le Guin uses to explore the role of technology. Other social structures are examined in works such as the story cycle Four Ways to Forgiveness , and the short story "Old Music and the Slave Women", occasionally described as a "fifth way to forgiveness".

Le Guin received rapid recognition after the publication of The Left Hand of Darkness in , and by the s she was among the best known writers in the field. Le Guin was unusual in receiving most of her recognition for her earliest works, which remained her most popular; [ ] a commentator in described a "tendency toward didacticism" in her later works, [ 9 ] while John Clute , writing in The Guardian , stated that her later writing "suffers from the need she clearly felt to speak responsibly to her large audience about important things; an artist being responsible can be an artist wearing a crown of thorns".

Her writing was recognized by the popular media and by commentators. Clarke , Le Guin was "arguably the most acclaimed science fiction writer on the planet", and went on to describe her as a "pioneer" of literature for young people. According to Bloom, Le Guin was a "visionary who set herself against all brutality, discrimination, and exploitation".

Le Guin's fellow authors also praised her writing. After Le Guin's death in , writer Michael Chabon referred to her as the "greatest American writer of her generation", and said that she had "awed [him] with the power of an unfettered imagination". The accolades Le Guin has received include numerous annual awards for individual works.

She won eight Hugo Awards from twenty-six nominations, and six Nebula Awards from eighteen nominations, including four Nebula Awards for Best Novel from six nominations, more than any other writer. Awards , and three Jupiter Awards. Other awards and accolades have recognized Le Guin's contributions to speculative fiction. Later in her career Le Guin also received accolades recognizing her contributions to literature more generally.

In April , the U. Library of Congress named Le Guin a Living Legend in the "Writers and Artists" category for her significant contributions to America's cultural heritage. The panel said that Le Guin "has inspired four generations of young adults to read beautifully constructed language, visit fantasy worlds that inform them about their own lives, and think about their ideas that are neither easy nor inconsequential".

The stamp features a portrait of the author taken from a photograph against a background image inspired by her book The Left Hand of Darkness. The stamp was designed by Donato Gionacola. Le Guin had a considerable influence on the field of speculative fiction; Jo Walton argued that Le Guin played a large role in both broadening the genre and helping genre writers achieve mainstream recognition.

Atwood considers A Wizard of Earthsea one of the "wellsprings" of fantasy literature, [ ] and modern writers have credited the book for the idea of a "wizard school", later made famous by the Harry Potter series of books, [ ] and with popularizing the trope of a boy wizard, also present in Harry Potter. Le Guin's writings set in the Hainish universe also had a wide influence.

Le Guin coined the name " ansible " for an instantaneous interstellar communication device in ; the term was later adopted by several other writers, including Orson Scott Card in the Ender Series and Neil Gaiman in a script for a Doctor Who episode. Commentators have also described Le Guin as being influential in the field of literature more generally.

Literary critic Elaine Showalter suggested that Le Guin "set the pace as a writer for women unlearning silence, fear, and self-doubt", [ 6 ] while writer Brian Attebery stated that "[Le Guin] invented us: science fiction and fantasy critics like me but also poets and essayists and picture book writers and novelists". Several prominent authors acknowledge Le Guin's influence on their own writing.

Jo Walton wrote that "her way of looking at the world had a huge influence on me, not just as a writer but as a human being". When McIntyre established a writers' workshop in Seattle in , Le Guin was one of the instructors. Curry launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to finish the documentary in early after winning a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction was announced in October The award is managed by the Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust and a panel of jurors. Le Guin's works have been adapted for radio, [ ] [ ] film, television, and the stage. In a interview, she said she considered the version as "the only good adaptation to film" of her work to date.

Le Guin, who was unfamiliar with his work and anime in general, initially turned down the offer, but later accepted after seeing My Neighbor Totoro. Le Guin was positive about the aesthetic of the film, writing that "much of it was beautiful", but was critical of the film's moral sense and its use of physical violence, and particularly the use of a villain whose death provided the film's resolution.

Le Guin was highly critical of the miniseries, calling it a "far cry from the Earthsea I envisioned", objecting to the use of white actors for her red-, brown-, and black-skinned characters. Reviewer Jack Helbig at the Chicago Reader wrote that the "adaptation is intelligent and well crafted but ultimately unsatisfying", in large measure because it is extremely difficult to compress a complex page novel into a two-hour stage presentation.

Taylor; [ ] the libretto has been attributed both to Kate Gale [ ] and to Marcia Johnson. She also said she was better pleased with stage versions, including Paradises Lost , than screen adaptations of her work to that date. The play opened May 2, , and ran until June 16, , in Portland, Oregon. Le Guin's career as a professional writer spanned nearly sixty years, from to During this period, she wrote more than twenty novels, more than a hundred short stories, more than a dozen volumes of poetry, five translations, and thirteen children's books.

Le Guin's first published work was the poem "Folksong from the Montayna Province" in , while her first published short story was "An die Musik", in Her first professional publication was the short story "April in Paris" in , while her first published novel was Rocannon's World , released by Ace Books in Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. American fantasy and science fiction author — Charles Le Guin. Alfred Kroeber Theodora Kroeber. Life [ edit ]. Childhood and education [ edit ]. Married life and death [ edit ]. Views and advocacy [ edit ].

Further information: Authors Guild, Inc. Google, Inc. Le Guin [ 31 ]. Chronology of writings [ edit ]. Early work [ edit ]. Critical attention [ edit ]. Wider exploration [ edit ]. Later writings [ edit ]. Style and influences [ edit ]. Influences [ edit ]. Le Guin [ 97 ]. Genre and style [ edit ]. Themes [ edit ]. Gender and sexuality [ edit ].

Moral development [ edit ]. Political systems [ edit ]. Reception and legacy [ edit ]. Reception [ edit ]. Awards and recognition [ edit ]. Legacy and influence [ edit ].