Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like "The Left Hand of Darkness" and. [151][152], 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. [179] Slavery, justice, and the role of women in society are also explored in Annals of the Western Shore. Ursula K. Le Guin, who beginning in the 1960s upended the male-dominated genres of fantasy and science fiction, crafting novels that grappled with issues of gender inequality, racism and . [44] Among them were "The Dowry of Angyar", which introduced the fictional Hainish universe,[45] and "The Rule of Names" and "The Word of Unbinding", which introduced the world of Earthsea. Le Guin, the daughter of distinguished anthropologist A.L. [83] In 2000 she published The Telling, which would be her final Hainish novel, and the next year released Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind, the last two Earthsea books. Since 1958, Le Guin has lived in Portland, Oregon, with her husband Charles Le Guin, whom she married in Paris in 1953. Early attempts to publish her fiction met with little success, and Le Guin's first published writings were poems. Her first major work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness, is considered epoch-making for its radical investigation of gender roles and its moral and literary complexity. [85][199], Later in her career Le Guin also received accolades recognizing her contributions to literature more generally. Some of her poetry from this period was published in 1975 in the volume Wild Angels. Portland State University Oral Histories. [142], Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. [39][40] Between 1951 and 1961 she also wrote five novels, all set in Orsinia, which were rejected by publishers on the grounds that they were inaccessible. She began writing novels and in the early 1960s, tried her hand at genre fiction and chose science fiction. The world-famous author was heralded as a major female voice in science fiction, but her work transcended the genre. Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton, In the Balance: Themes in World History (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998), Queen Ursula, photo . This interview was recorded at the Portland State University Library on February 21, 2019. A Wizard of Earthsea, published in 1968, was a fantasy novel written initially for teenagers. PORTLAND, Ore. Ursula K. Le Guin, the award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who explored feminist themes and was best known for her Earthsea books, has died at 88. Special Collections & University Archives [57][101][102][103][104] She described living with her father's friends and acquaintances as giving her the experience of the other. [168] Fellow author Kathleen Ann Goonan wrote that Le Guin's work confronted the "paradigm of insularity toward the suffering of people, other living beings, and resources", and explored "life-respecting sustainable alternatives". She was 88. Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California, on October 21, 1929.Her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960), was an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. In recent novels, such as The Other Wind, she grapples with aging and death. 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. [50][52], 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. 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. Alice Lehman describes the program's move downtown from cramped quarters in the former Lincoln High School into the new Health and Physical Education building (Peter Stott Center) in 1966, and the development of women's collegiate athletics programs at PSU and in the state. I adored Kipling's Jungle Book. [17] As a child she had been interested in biology and poetry, but had been limited in her choice of career by her difficulties with mathematics. Her best-known fantasies, the six Books of Earthsea, have sold millions of copies and have been translated into sixteen languages. [15] In the early 1980s Hayao Miyazaki asked to create an animated adaptation of Earthsea. > Le Guin, the award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who explored . [5] Not all of her works received as positive a reception; The Compass Rose was among the volumes that had a mixed reaction, while the Science Fiction Encyclopedia described The Eye of the Heron as "an over-diagrammatic political fable whose translucent simplicity approaches self-parody". The U.S. Library of Congress named her a Living Legend in 2000, and in 2014, she won the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. This biography of Le Guin was written in 2003 by a Portland State University Women's Studies student as part of the "Portland Women City-Builders" project. Le Guin recounts, I had had courses from him and he was in Paris when I was there on my Fulbright: indeed, he and Blair were at my wedding there. (Charles and his wife Ursula still have the samovar and tea cups that the Majors gave them as wedding presents. Ursula Le Guin's first published work was a poem titled Folksong from the Montayna Province, which appeared in Prairie Poet in 1959. [57][127] Examples include Rocannon in Rocannon's World and Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness. [2] Le Guin herself said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". She describes her early fiction as "just a little off." . [18] They married in Paris in December 1953. Her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber, was an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters,[53] the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles,[141] and the portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. As a Vanport Extension Center student, he had close relationships with many faculty, including VEC founder Stephen Epler. Ursula Le Guin once famously said: "One person cannot do two fulltime jobs, but two persons can do three fulltime jobs, if the work is honestly shared.". [148] During this later period she commented that she considered The Eye of the Heron, published in 1978, to be her first work genuinely centered on a woman. Dr. Charles A. He describes his view of Portland State's development from a small college to a large urban university, the professional, social, and cultural environments of the downtown campus, and the founding of pioneering academic programs such as University Studies and the Honors College. The Oregon History Wayfinder is an interactive map that identifies significant places, people, and events in Oregon history. "There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle. [136] The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, whose inhabitants are ambisexual humans with no fixed gender identity, who adopt female or male sexual characteristics for brief periods of their sexual cycle. He is an emeritus member of the Alumni Board and a founding member of the Friends of the Library. Chuck Becker, Alice Lehman, Jack Schendel, Maxine Thomas, Cristine Paschild, and Steve Brannan. Le Guin is Professor Emeritus of History at Portland State University, where he taught for over thirty-five years. When McIntyre established a writers' workshop in Seattle in 1971, Le Guin was one of the instructors. In this interview with Heather O. Petrocelli on May 16, 2017, Dr. Home [81] In the same year she published the story suite Four Ways to Forgiveness, and followed it up with "Old Music and the Slave Women", a fifth, connected, story in 1999. When she veered explicitly into the critically unrespected genres of science fiction and fantasy, she found willing publishers. [9] Prefacing an interview in 2008, Vice magazine described Le Guin as having written "some of the more mind-warping [science fiction] and fantasy tales of the past 40 years". Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. [142] Le Guin's portrayal of gender in Earthsea was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink". [60] Both books were praised for their writing, while the exploration of death as a theme in The Farthest Shore also drew praise. [80], Le Guin returned to the Hainish Cycle in the 1990s after a lengthy hiatus with the publication of a series of short stories, beginning with "The Shobies' Story" in 1990. PORTLAND, Ore. Ursula K. Le Guin, the award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who explored feminist themes and was best known for her Earthsea books, has died at 88. [149], Le Guin explores coming of age, and moral development more broadly, in many of her writings. [216] Le Guin also played a role in bringing speculative fiction into the literary mainstream by supporting journalists and scholarly endeavors examining the genre. Mythology and legend were an integral part of the Kroebers family life, and Le Guin remembers that she "was brought up to think and to question and to enjoy.". I think Harvey Young outlived them all I know, much as I admired the others, he was one of the sweetest men I ever knew, the sort of professor I would most like to have been. He compared the universitys present graduate stipends with the support available when he was at Emory: In 1950 I had a scholarship of $750 dollars a term, which was immediately returned to cover my tuition. It cannot be reproduced, distributed, or screened for commercial purposes. [107][108][109] Le Guin discussed her interpretation of this archetype, and her interest in the dark and repressed parts of the psyche, in a 1974 lecture. [127] In discovering these "alien" worlds, Le Guin's protagonists, and by extension the readers, also journey into themselves, and challenge the nature of what they consider "alien" and what they consider "native". It received critical praise,[78] won Le Guin a third Nebula Award for Best Novel,[79] and led to the series being recognized among adult literature. Le Guin is Professor Emeritus of History at Portland State University, where he taught for over thirty-five years. > [16] She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1951, and graduated as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. The house where Le Guin has lived for more than fifty years has, in certain respects, come to resemble its owner. Ursula K. Le Guin (b. Copyright. [18] Soon after, she began working towards a PhD, and won a Fulbright grant to continue her studies in France from 1953 to 1954. The unabridged recording and transcript are available through Portland State University Archives at the PSU Library. "[35][36] In a speech at the 2014 National Book Awards, Le Guin criticized Amazon and the control it exerted over the publishing industry, specifically referencing Amazon's treatment of the Hachette Book Group during a dispute over ebook publication. Calendar Location Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway Portland, OR 97205 Cost / Admission $25 and up Contact Ethan Sperry esperry@pdx.edu 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". In Oregon, Willamette Writers honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she received two Endeavour Awards from Oregon Science Fiction Conventions and the Charles Erskine Scott Wood Distinguished Writer Award from Oregon Literary Arts. Le Guin is Professor Emeritus of History at Portland State University, where he taught for over thirty-five years. [214] Bloom followed this up by listing the book in his The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books in his conception of artistic works that have been important and influential in Western culture. [6] Le Guin's own literary criticism proved influential; her 1973 essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" led to renewed interest in the work of Kenneth Morris, and eventually to the publication of a posthumous novel by Morris. [14][100], The discipline of cultural anthropology had a powerful influence on Le Guin's writing. [42] Her first professional publication was the short story "April in Paris" in 1962 in Fantastic Science Fiction,[43] and seven other stories followed in the next few years, in Fantastic or Amazing Stories. "[57] Her 1985 book Always Coming Home, described as "her great experiment", included a story told from the perspective of a young protagonist, but also included poems, rough drawings of plants and animals, myths, and anthropological reports from the matriarchal society of the Kesh, a fictional people living in the Napa valley after a catastrophic global flood. Born in 1929 in Berkeley, California, Ursula Le Guin is the daughter of the writer Theodora Kroeber and anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. Portland ended up being the couple's permanent home, but for a couple of sojourns Ursula made to London when she received further Fulbright research grants . [53], Commentators have also described Le Guin as being influential in the field of literature more generally. [55][207][208] The Earthsea books are cited as having a wide impact, including outside the field of literature. But that didn't have too much effect on me. Le Guin, whose novels - often set on. Le Guin taught writing workshops from Vermont to Australia, including those at Pacific University in Forest Grove and Portland State University, where she was a frequent teacher at Haystack, and at Fishtrap in Wallowa County. Born in Berkeley, California in 1929, Le Guin graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951, then earned a master's degree from Columbia University the following year. [101] Her father Alfred Kroeber is considered a pioneer in the field, and was a director of the University of California Museum of Anthropology: as a consequence of his research, Le Guin was exposed to anthropology and cultural exploration as a child. [65][66] The fiction of the period 1966 to 1974, which also included The Lathe of Heaven, the Hugo Award-winning "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" and the Nebula Award-winning "The Day Before the Revolution",[67] constitutes Le Guin's best-known body of work. The fledgling college was still small in 1959, but Portland State was fertile ground for intellectual collaboration and camaraderie among faculty across academic departments. Le Guin's first published work was the poem "Folksong from the Montayna Province" in 1959, while her first published short story was "An die Musik", in 1961. She stopped working when she gave birth to their first child in 1957. Le Guin died . These books and many othersincluding Lavinia (2008), an astonishing take on Virgil's [] [219], In October 2021, the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction was announced. As the colleges chief fiscal officer, Lemman fostered partnerships with city and federal governments to develop the downtown campus and worked to bring student housing to Portland State. The Lathe of Heaven is set in near-future Portland, and "The New Atlantis" envisions Oregon after an environmental collapse. | Accessibility Statement [225] In 2004, the Sci Fi Channel adapted the first two books of the Earthsea trilogy as the miniseries Legend of Earthsea. [232], Le Guin's career as a professional writer spanned nearly sixty years, from 1959 to 2018. When they returned home, Charles Le Guin took up a position as a history lecturer at Portland State University and Le Guin concentrated on raising their children. 5. Ursula K. Le Guin. [55] According to scholar Donna White, Le Guin was a "major voice in American letters", whose writing was the subject of many volumes of literary critique, more than two hundred scholarly articles, and a number of dissertations. [85][194] The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted her in 2001, its sixth class of two deceased and two living writers. "Ursula K. Le Guin. " Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin. Ursula K. Le Guin, the award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who explored feminist themes and was best known for her . Their second child came in 1958 and Charles began working at Portland State University, so the family moved to Portland, Oregon. He describes his view of Portland State's development from a small college to a large urban university, the professional, social, and cultural environments of the downtown campus, and the founding of pioneering academic programs such as University Studies and the Honors College. Marries historian Charles A. Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminine sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like "The Left Hand of Darkness" and. Acknowledgements and thanks to RAPS, Retirement Association of Portland State University, for biographical information on Mr. Lemman. The play opened May 2, 2013, and ran until June 16, 2013, in Portland, Oregon. Still, her name is most often associated with the speculative works of the imagination that first introduced her to readers. [4][14][15], Le Guin attended Berkeley High School. [6] The New York Times described her as using "a lean but lyrical style" to explore issues of moral relevance. [126] Le Guin suggested the term "social science fiction" for some of her writing, while pointing out that many of her stories were not science fiction at all. [9][205] Her writing encompassed speculative fiction, realistic fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, librettos, essays, poetry, speeches, translations, literary critiques, chapbooks, and children's fiction. [4] Le Guin had not planned to write for young adults, but was asked to write a novel targeted at this group by the editor of Parnassus Press, who saw it as a market with great potential. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her 1995 short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in a later reprinting of "Winter's King", which was first published in 1969. One of my great pleasures is seeing Tom Mullen in summers when he comes to Oregon to visit his son and grandchildren. Charles Le Guin, Ph.D. 1956, has written from Portland, Oregon. Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, to author Theodora Kroeber and anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber. Her reputation as an author of the first rank, and her role as ambassador. [54] That volume is specifically cited as leaving a large legacy; in discussing it, literary critic Harold Bloom wrote "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time". [33] The experiences of Ishi, in particular, were influential on Le Guin, and elements of his story have been identified in works such as Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, and The Word for World Is Forest and The Dispossessed. The Los Angeles Times commented in 2009 that after the death of Arthur C. 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. [19] A second daughter, Caroline, was born in 1959. They moved to Portland and had three children. [172] "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a parable depicting a society in which widespread wealth, happiness, and security, comes at the cost of the continued misery of a single child, has also been read as a critique of contemporary American society. Relationships: Le Guin, Ursula K. (spouse) Le Guin, Elisabeth (daughter) Organizations: Portland State University. https://www.ursulakleguin.com/. [63][64] Several of her speculative fiction short stories from the period, including her first published story, were later anthologized in the 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters. Success, and Le Guin 's first published writings were poems screened for commercial.! Moral development more broadly, in many of her writings she began writing novels in. Still have the samovar and tea cups that the Majors gave them as presents... And chose science fiction Wild Angels novel written initially for teenagers Le Guin attended Berkeley High.... 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