URSULA K LE GUIN

Ursula K Le Guin: Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author. She is known for her speculative fiction. She also works on science fiction, which is set in the Earthsea fantasy series and Hainish universe. She started her literary career with the first publication in 1959, and it expanded over a period of sixty years. In this span, she produced hundreds of short stories, more than twenty novels, as well as poetry, literary criticism, children’s books, and translations. Le Guin is often known as a science fiction writer. She is among the major voices in American Letters. She would prefer to be known as an “American novelist.”

URSULA K LE GUIN

Ursula K Le Guin started writing in the late 1950s as a full-time writer. With the novel A Wizard Earthsea published in 1968 and The Left Hand of Darkness, she attained significant commercial and critical success. These two novels have been described as the masterpieces by Harold Bloom. She also wrote other works that have been set in the Hainish or the Earthsea universe. She also wrote books for children, anthologies, and books set in Orsinia.

Ursula K Le Guin has been greatly strongly influenced by feminism, Taoism, anthropology, and works of Carl Jung. She has employed the protagonist, who is most of the time, cultural observers, or anthropologists. She also based works on Taoist ideas about equilibrium and balance.

Ursula K Le Guin often undermines the typical troops of speculative fiction by using a black or dark-skinned protagonist in Earthsea and unusual structural and stylistic devices in her books. The social and political themes she highlighted in her works include gender, sexuality, race, and coming of age. In her stories, she also points out the alternative political structures.

The writings of Ursula K Le Guin have been extensively influential in the genre of speculative fiction. Her works have been a focus of intense critical attention. Ursula K Le Guin received numerous honors that include six Nebulas, eight Hugos, and twenty-two Locus Awards. In 2003, she was the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

In 2000, she was titled as a Living Legend by the U.S. Library of Congress. She also won the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014.

 A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF URSULA K. LE GUIN

Ursula K. Le Guin was born on 21st October 1929 in Berkeley, California. She was the young child and the only daughter among the four siblings. Her mother, Theodora, was a renowned writer, and her father Alfred was a renowned anthropologist. Le Guin grew up in a highly encouraging house where ideas, cultures, and exploration of art are encouraged. Her family was well acquainted with the members of the Native American community.

Being a lover of mythology, Ursula K Le Guin attended Radcliffe College. She graduated from Columbia University with an M.A. degree. She married Charles Ursula K Le Guin, a fellow Fulbright scholar, and historian in 1953. After the two months of marriage, she went on a voyage to France with her husband. She left her medical profession after marriage and became a full-time writer.

After starting a literary career in 1959, Ursula K Le Guin faced rejection for lots of years from the mainstream publishers. Eventually, she started working on the genre of fantasy and science fiction. This form of writing was widely accepted by publishers, readers, and critics. Ursula K Le Guin published the first novel of the Hainish series or cycle, Rocannon’s World. The novel set the planet Hain as the first birthplace of humanity.

She also published some other cycles, including The Word for World, is Forest, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, and The Telling.

In 1966, he published Planet of Exile and, in 1967, City of Illusions. The fourth book among the Hainish Cycle is The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969. This book became one of the celebrated books and masterpieces of Le Guin.

Le Guin started writing for the young readers after a request from a publisher. In 1968, she published A Wizard of Earthsea. Earthsea became a famous series with a visceral description of physical and magic terrain. The second book in the series was followed by The Tombs of Atuan in 1970 which was followed by The Farthest 1972 and Tehanu in 1990. In 2001, she also published Tales from Earthsea and The Other Winds.

Le Guin often undermines the typical troops of speculative fiction by using a black or dark-skinned protagonist in Earthsea and unusual structural and stylistic devices in her books. The social and political themes she highlighted in her works include gender, sexuality, race, and coming of age. In her stories, she also points out the alternative political structures.

The writings of Ursula K Le Guin have been extensively influential in the genre of speculative fiction. Her works have been a focus on intense critical attention. Ursula K Le Guin received numerous honors that include six Nebulas, eight Hugos, and twenty-two Locus Awards. In 2003, she was the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

In 2000, she was titled as a Living Legend by the U.S. Library of Congress. She also won the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014.

PERSONAL LIFE

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 22nd January 108, Le Guin died at her home in Portland, at the age of 88. Though there was no apparent cause for death, one of her sons mentioned that she had been in poor health for months.

INFLUENCES

Right from her childhood and youth, Ursula K 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. The major influences that Le Guin describes include William Wordsworth, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Phillip K. Dick, and Boris Pasternak. Le Guin mentions her novel The Lathe of Heaven as an homage to Phillip K. Dick.

Le Guin also regarded that her style has been greatly influenced by Leo Tolstoy and J. R. R. Tolkien. 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. For example, “The Dowry of the Angyar” is based on the myth of Norse.

The works of Le Guin have been greatly influenced by the discipline of cultural studies and anthropology. Alfred Kroeber, Le Guin’s father, is regarded as the pioneer of the field of 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. The word for World is Forest and City of Illusion and The Dispossessed.

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.

In the interpretation of this archetype, Le Guin states her interest in the repressed and dark side of the psyche. In the writings of Ursula K Le Guin, other archetypes are also identified, such as Anima Animus, and Mother.

The worldview of Ursula K Le Guin has been largely influenced by the philosophy of Taoism. The ideas and thoughts of Taoists are apparent in the stories of Le Guin. Most of the protagonists of the Ursula K Le Guin appear to be embodying the ideals of Taoism, particularly the idea of leaving alone.

For instance, the anthropologists from the universe of Hainish are attempting not to interfere with the culture they encounter. Moreover, among the earliest lessons that Ged realizes and learns is not to use magic uncles, it is highly necessary.

The demonstration of the balance and equilibrium in the world of Earthsea is also showing her inspiration from the Taoist philosophy. For example, the archipelago is shown to be based on gentle balance, and in the first three novels, it is disturbed by somebody. As implicit in Earthsea’s name, the equilibrium exists between sea and land, between the natural environment, and the larger cosmic equilibrium. The wizards are supposed to maintain it.

The binary opposites such as light and dark is another important and prominent idea of Taoism found in the works of Le Guin. Numerous novels based on the Hainish Universe, such as The Dispossessed, explores such a process of compromise. Likewise, in the works based on the Earthsea universe, the misunderstanding of characters of the balance of life is portrayed as evil, not the dark powers. These stories are in sharp contrast to the Western stories in which evil and good appear to be in constant conflict.

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