Ursula K. Le Guin Was a Creator of Worlds

Born in Berkeley, California, in 1929, Le Guin began publishing science fiction in the early 1960s and within ten years was acknowledged as one of the most important writers in the genre, particularly with the publication of A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and The Dispossessed (1974). Le Guin remained loyal to her chosen field but sought artistic freedom by working in many different genres, including poetry, historical fiction, picture books, essays, translation, and, toward the end of her nearly sixty-year career, writing a funny and opinionated blog. Le Guin has said her fiction reflected attitudes she learned from her father: “curiosity about people different from one’s own kind; interest in artifacts; interest in languages; delight in the idiosyncrasies of various cultures; a sense that time is long yet that human history is very short—and therefore, a sense of kinship across seas and centuries; a love of strangeness; a love of exactness.”

Source: www.neh.gov