Ursula K. Le Guin was a fantasy and science fiction writer. She passed away this past January and would have celebrated her 89th birthday on October 21st.She is most famously known for her works, the Earthsea series, The Left Hand of Darkness, Lavinia, and The Dispossessed.
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
She was known for writing pieces on environmentalism, sociology, and psychology that centered around her utopias and also dystopias. In 2016, The New York Times called LeGuin, “America’s greatest living science fiction writer”.
At the time of her death, famous author Margaret Atwood said, “I am very sad that Ursula K Le Guin has died. Not only was she one of the literary greats of the 20th century – her books are many and widely read and beloved, her awards are many and deserved – but her sane, committed, annoyed, humorous, wise and always intelligent voice is much needed now.”
Harold Bloom, a literary critic wrote that her most famous work, The Left Hand of Darkness, meant “that Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time.”
She won many awards including The Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Locus Award and the World Fantasy Award. She was also made a Grandmaster of Science Fiction in 2003, something that not many women are able to be a part of.
“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world, and exiles me from it.”