Ursula LeGuin dead at 88

[TygrBright]

Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88
(Source: NYT)

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 the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Ore. She was 88.

Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, confirmed the death. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months.

Ms. Le Guin embraced the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes. The conflicts they face are typically rooted in a clash of cultures and resolved more by conciliation and self-sacrifice than by swordplay or space battles.

Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Several, including “The Left Hand of Darkness” — set on a planet where the customary gender distinctions do not apply — have been in print for almost 50 years. The critic Harold Bloom lauded Ms. Le Guin as “a superbly imaginative creator and major stylist” who “has raised fantasy into high literature for our time.”

"Wizard of Earthsea" was a transformational read for me, back in the day.

Vale, Magistra.

sadly,
Bright

[shanny]

1. ...

[Gothmog]

2. May she rest in peace

[Vogon_Glory]

3. A great science fiction/fantasy writer has passed

Her work not only entertained but also inspired many of us. She will be missed, especially these dystopian times.

RIP.

[Nonhlanhla]

4. Wonderful scifi writer

Often with a feminist undertone. RIP.

[utopian]

5. One of the great American writers, IMO

When I marched against the Iraq war, she was there. Saw her read her poetry at Wordstock a few years ago. I was in awe.

She's one of the main reasons I'm proud to be from PDX.


RIP

[longship]

6. "The Lathe of Heaven"

I have the DVD of PBS's first prime time movie, based on LeGuin's book. The book is good; I've read it several times.

Apparently, the PBS film is available on YouTube:

[planetc]

7. A great writer has passed.

Long ago, I was doing some work for a new encyclopedia. I was to choose women writers in a variety of genres for inclusion in the text. The thing I got to hate most was the scholar who decided that Ms. X was, for instance, "the best black woman writer of her generation." BLEAH! I wanted to shout. How good a writer was she? If we continue to stuff all writers into boxes labeled for various genres and periods and genders, we do them and their work an injustice. We imagine that her achievement is smaller than your average Nobelist in literature.

Le Guin took every stale assumption and compacted stupidity of our civilization, and gently turned it around, upside down, inside out, and in an unanticipated direction, and she showed us a myriad of possibilities in ourselves and our futures which we had not known how to see before. She was easily as good as Tolstoy. She took a very long view of humanity while keeping the individual human being as her central focus. Too late for a Nobel. But we can still read everything she wrote, which I recommend.

[mia]

8. Here she is, reading from "The Wizard of Earthsea".

Her reading begins at 9:30.

[Voltaire2]

9. Damn. One my favorites.