Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
UrsulaLeGuin.01.jpg
Ursula K. Le Guin at an informal bookstore Q&A session, July 2004
Born October 21, 1929 (1929-10-21) (age 80)
Berkeley, California, United States
Occupation Novelist
Nationality American
Genres Science fiction
fantasy
Influences
Influenced
Official website

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (pronounced /ˈɝsələ ˈkroʊbɚ ləˈgwɪn/) (born October 21, 1929) is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, most notably in the fantasy and science fiction genres.

She was first published in the 1960s. Her works explore Taoist, anarchist, ethnographic, feminist, psychological and sociological themes. She has received several Hugo and Nebula awards, and was awarded the Gandalf Grand Master award in 1979 and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2003. She has received eighteen Locus Awards, more than any other author. Her novel The Farthest Shore won the National Book Award for Children's Books in 1973.

Le Guin was the Professional Guest of Honor at the 1975 World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, Australia. She received the Library of Congress Living Legends award in the "Writers and Artists" category in April 2000 for her significant contributions to America's cultural heritage.[2] In 2004, Le Guin was the recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children's May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award. She was honored by The Washington Center for the Book for her distinguished body of work with the Maxine Cushing Gray Fellowship for Writers on 18 October 2006.[3] Robert Heinlein in part dedicated his 1982 novel Friday to Ursula.[4]

Contents

Biography

Le Guin was born and raised in Berkeley, California, the daughter of anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber and writer Theodora Kroeber. In 1901 Le Guin's father earned the first Ph.D. in anthropology in the United States from Columbia University and went on to found the second department, at the University of California at Berkeley. [5] Theodora Kroeber's biography of her husband, Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration, is a good source for Le Guin's early years and for the biographical elements in her late works, especially her interest in social anthropology.

She received her B.A. (Phi Beta Kappa) from Radcliffe College in 1951, and M.A. from Columbia University in 1952. She later studied in France, where she met her husband, historian Charles Le Guin. They were married in 1953.

She became interested in literature when she was very young. At the age of eleven she submitted her first story to the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (it was rejected). Her earliest writings (some of which appear in adapted in Orsinian Tales and Malafrena), were non-fantastic stories of imaginary countries. Searching for a publishable way to express her interests, she returned to her early interest in science fiction and began to be published regularly in the early 1960s. She began to receive wide recognition after her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, which won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1970.

In later years, she also did some work in film and audio. She had a part with The Lathe of Heaven, a 1979 PBS Film. In 1985, she collaborated with avant garde composer David Bedford on the libretto of opera Rigel 9,a space opera.

Le Guin has lived in Portland, Oregon since 1958. She has three children and four grandchildren.

Themes

Much of Le Guin's science fiction places a strong emphasis on the social sciences, including sociology and anthropology, thus placing it in the subcategory known as soft science fiction.[6] Her writing often makes use of unusual alien cultures to convey a message about human culture in general, for example, the exploration of sexual identity through the androgynous race in The Left Hand of Darkness. Such themes place her work in the canon of feminist science fiction.[7] Her works are also often concerned with ecological issues.

Le Guin's work is marked by the attention she pays to the ordinary actions and transactions of everyday life. For example in 'Tehanu' it is central to the story that the main characters are concerned with the everyday business of looking after animals, tending gardens and doing domestic chores. Thus, her works can be seen as anthropological. She creates otherworldly perspectives to explore political and cultural themes. Le Guin has also written fiction set much closer to home; many of her short stories are set in our world in the present or near future.

Several of Le Guin's science fiction works, including her novels The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, fit into the Hainish Cycle, which details a future, galactic civilization loosely connected by a organizational body known as the Ekumen. Many of these works deal with the consequences of contact between different worlds and cultures and the Ekumen serves as a framework in which to stage these interactions. For example, the novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Telling deal with the consequences of the arrival of Ekumen envoys (known as "mobiles") on remote planets and the culture shock that ensues.

A notable feature of her science fiction work that sets it apart from much of mainstream hard science fiction is that none of the civilizations she depicts possess reliable faster-than-light travel. In response to this she created the ansible, a device which allows instantaneous communication over any distance. The term has been subsequently borrowed by several other well-known authors.

Adaptations of her work

Despite her literary recognition, most of Le Guin's major works have yet to be adapted to film or television. Her 1971 novel The Lathe of Heaven has been adapted twice. First, in 1980 by thirteen/WNET New York, with her own participation, and again in 2002 by the A&E Network.

In the early 1980's animator and director Hayao Miyazaki had asked permission to create an animated adaptation of Earthsea. However, Le Guin, who was unfamiliar with his work and anime in general, turned down the offer. Several years later, after seeing My Neighbour Totoro, she reconsidered her stance, believing that if anyone should be allowed to direct an Earthsea film, it should be Hayao Miyazaki. Eventually The third and fourth Earthsea books were used as the basis of the 2005 animated film Tales from Earthsea (ゲド戦記 Gedo Senki?). However the film was directed by Miyazaki's son, Goro instead and Le Guin has expressed mixed feelings toward it.[8] The first two books of the Earthsea trilogy have also been adapted, as the 2004 miniseries Legend of Earthsea by the Sci Fi Channel. This adaptation was frowned upon by Le Guin, who says that she was "cut out of the process" and that the miniseries was a "far cry from the Earthsea I envisioned."[9] As a result of copyright issues stemming from miniseries, the animated film is unable to be released in the United States until 2009.[10]

Fiction

Earthsea (fantasy)

The Earthsea novels

Note: The short story "Dragonfly" from Tales from Earthsea is intended to fit in between Tehanu and The Other Wind and, according to Le Guin, is "an important bridge in the series as a whole".[11]

The Earthsea short stories

Hainish Cycle (science fiction)

The Hainish Cycle novels

The Hainish Cycle short stories

Miscellaneous novels and story cycles

Note: Le Guin has said that The Eye of the Heron might form part of the Hainish cycle. The other tales are unconnected with any of her other works, except that Malafrena takes place in the same realistic-but-imagined part of Europe as Orsinian Tales.

Short story collections

Books for children and young adults

The Catwings Collection

Annals of the Western Shore

Other books for children and young adults

Nonfiction

Prose

Poetry

Translations and Renditions

See also: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

Le Guin is a prolific author and has published many works that are not listed here. Many works were originally published in science fiction literary magazines. Those that have not since been anthologized have fallen into obscurity.

Scholarship

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Rough Guide To Cult Fiction", Tom Bullough, et al., Penguin Books Ltd, London, 2005, p.163
  2. ↑ "Legends: Ursula LeGuin", Awards and Honors (Library of Congress).
  3. ↑ "News Release," The Seattle Public Library, 19 October 2006.
  4. ↑ Heinlein, Robert A (1984). Friday. New England Library. ISBN 0-450-05549-3. 
  5. ↑ Steward, Julian (1960) Obituary: Alfred Louis Kroeber. American Ethnography Quasimonthly http://www.americanethnography.com/article_sql.php?id=10&page=2
  6. ↑ Charlotte Spivack, "'Only in Dying, Life': The Dynamics of Old Age in the Fiction of Ursula Le Guin," Modern Language Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Summer, 1984), pp. 43-53
  7. ↑ Marilyn Strathern, "Gender as It Might Be: A Review Article," RAIN, No. 28. (Oct., 1978), pp. 4-7.
  8. ↑ Ursula K. LeGuin, "Gedo Senki"
  9. ↑ A Whitewashed Earthsea: How the Sci Fi Channel Wrecked My Books.
  10. ↑ Ursula K. LeGuin, "Gedo Senki"
  11. ↑ The Other Wind, Ursula K. Le Guin's Website

External links

Works by Ursula K. Le Guin – (bibliography)
Earthsea
"The Word of Unbinding" (1964) · "The Finder" (2001) · "Darkrose and Diamond" (1999) · "The Rule of Names" (1964) · "The Bones of the Earth" (2001) · A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) · The Tombs of Atuan (1971) · "On the High Marsh" (2001) · The Farthest Shore (1972) · Tehanu (1990) · "Dragonfly" (1997) · Tales from Earthsea (coll 2001) · The Other Wind (2001)
Hainish Cycle
"Dowry of the Angyar" (1964) · Rocannon's World (1966) · Planet of Exile (1966) · City of Illusions (1967) · The Left Hand of Darkness (1967) · "Winter's King" (1969) · "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" (1971) · The Dispossessed (1974) · "The Day Before the Revolution" (1974) · The Word for World is Forest (1976) · "The Shobies' Story" (1990) · "Dancing to Ganam" (1993) · "Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea" (1994) · "The Matter of Seggri" (1994) · "Unchosen Love" (1994) · "Solitude" (1994) · Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995) · "Coming of Age in Karhide" (1995) • "Mountain Ways" (1996) · "Old Music and the Slave Women" (1999) · The Telling (2000)
Other fiction
(novels bold)
The Lathe of Heaven (1971) · The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) · Orsinian Tales (1976) · The Eye of the Heron (1978) · Malafrena (1979) · The Beginning Place (1980) · The Compass Rose (1982) · Always Coming Home (1985) · Buffalo Gals, and Other Animal Presences (1987) · Searoad (1991) · A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1991) · Unlocking the Air and Other Stories (1996) · The Birthday of the World (2002) · Changing Planes (2003)
Nonfiction
The Language of the Night (1979) · Dancing at the Edge of the World (1982) · "Revisioning Earthsea" (1992 published lecture) · Steering the Craft (1998) · The Wave in the Mind (2004)
Persondata
NAME Le Guin, Ursula K.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Le Guin, Ursula Kroeber
SHORT DESCRIPTION American novelist
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Berkeley, California, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH