Ursula K. Le Guin鈥檚 death at the age of 88 robs literature of one of its greats. She produced masterpieces in both fantasy and science fiction and wrote important and influential criticism as well 鈥� a rare trifecta.
Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929, the youngest child of anthropologists Theodora and Alfred Kroeber (the K in her name records their surname). She studied English and French at Columbia University, going on to a PhD in medieval French poetry, and it was during a research trip to France she met her husband Charles Le Guin. The couple settled in Portland, Oregon, where, while raising their family, she wrote.
It was only after the birth of her third and last child in 1964 that she began to be published. A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) was her first major success and the first in her much-loved Earthsea novels. It is set on a vast archipelago threaded by magic and overflown by dragons. It is profound enough to satisfy adults and enchanting enough to hold the attention of children. Two sequels (The Tombs of Atuan, 1970; The Farthest Shore, 1972) widen our knowledge this world; later additions Tehanu (1990) and The Other Wind (2001) address, trenchantly and persuasively, the masculine bias and environmental blindness to which genre fantasy is often prone.
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In science fiction, Le Guin鈥檚 breakthrough was The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), set on a planet whose population is biologically neuter except during fertile phases called 鈥渒emmer鈥�, when they become either male or female, fathering or bearing children, and during the course of their lives often doing both. The nuanced and compelling social science and the psychological acuity of this novel bring its world powerfully to life. It won Hugo and Nebula awards, has never been out of print, and is often taught at college and university as a heuristic for thinking through gender in society and identity. But it is much more than its central thought-experiment: beautifully written, fully rendered, an immersive and moving masterpiece.
The Dispossessed: An ambiguous utopia (1974) concerns two inhabited worlds, one a network of self-governing communes, the other a capitalist state. It explores the complex interconnection of utopia and dystopia, and remains one of the most influential modern utopian novels.
Real-world anarchist and Marxist critics have often found their world-views reflected in her work, but Le Guin鈥檚 actual writings suggest an almost Taoist commitment to balance.
Le Guin鈥檚 many interrogations of utopia are nuanced and complex explorations of the concept, rather than mere extrapolations of possible nostrums or social cures. Always Coming Home (1985) is utopian not in any banal manner 鈥� the post-apocalyptic life described is hard 鈥� but in its apprehension that joy is achieved via a life fully lived in society.
In addition to myriad individual awards, Le Guin was granted a World Fantasy Convention Life Achievement Award in 1995, and in 2003 was made a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.
More impressive still, to my mind: Le Guin was always open to rethinking her positions. Her feminism deepened through the 1970s and 1980s. Her thoughtful essay about The Left Hand of Darkness, 鈥淚s Gender Necessary?鈥� (1976), struck her, by the 1980s, as no longer adequate, so she republished it with lengthy commentary in 1987.
鈥淚s Gender Necessary? Redux鈥� was reprinted in The Language of the Night: Essays on fantasy and science fiction (revised edition, 1992), a work essential to anyone interested in critical debates about these genres.
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