Ursula K. Le Guin

@ursulakleguin.com

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Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author of novels, children’s books, poetry and essays. This account is managed by her estate. https://www.ursulakleguin.com/

The new cover for The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, which shows the title, author's name, and "a new introduction by Stephen Graham Jones" in blue, yellow, and green clouds, over a background of smoking tree stumps and a sickly-colored sky and ground
An event graphic for the conversation between Nisi Shawl and Theo Downes-Le Guin that takes place at 7 pm Thursday, July 16th, at Elliott Bay Book Company.
The black-and-white illustration for the story "Intracom" shows a figure in a black dress on the right, facing a worm-like figure on the left. Both stand in front of a door; an arm sticks through the mail slot. Plates and food are scattered across the floor.
A bouquet of flowers next to a stack of books that includes: Audition by Pip Adam (Coffee House Press) Sunward by William Alexander (Saga Press) Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell (Neon Hemlock) Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (Algonquin) The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (Tor Books) Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman (Tor Books) Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (DAW Books) One Message Remains by Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp) Slow Gods by Claire North (Orbit)
"History must be what we have escaped from. It is what we were, not what we are. History is what we need never do again." Ursula K. Le Guin, from "Paradises Lost," 2002
The cover for the 1976 edition of The Word for World is Forest is all shades of green: The author's name is across the top in white, under which smaller text says "author of The Left Hand of Darkness." The book title is a vivid yellow, and under that text says "the mind-stunning science fiction masterpiece." The illustration shows a female fiture with long hair, nude, behind a lot of waving green growths that emanate from a round planet-like shape at the lower right. There are bits of red and yellow mixed in, giving the whole thing a cellular vibe. In the foreground, at the bottom, are green figures, not quite human-like.
A hand-drawn poster, in purple ink on white paper, reads: Ursula K. Le Guin internationally acclaimed science-fiction Authoress SPEAKS today Thursday March 11 3:00 pm 53 Cramer Hall and in very small writing at the bottom, it says "COME AND BECOME ENLIGHTENED." There are doodles all around - a moon at the top, a sort of flower/vine that goes around the sides and bottom, and a doorway/stone hall in which a humanlike figure looks forlorn.
Art by Daria Čičmir Marković for the story "The First Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb," which shows a black shape, somewhat egglike, with a corklike bit at the top. Inside the shape is a white cat, eyes closed happily, sleeping on its side.
The box set cover for The Complete Earthsea shows, on the spine, a hawk and a black bird above the title; at the bottom it lists the contents of the set (the books of Earthsea, plus stories and essays; edited by Brian Attebery). At the bottom is a white city and a stretch of ocean. The front image shows the continued ocean in the foreground, with a figure in the distance; the sky is full of dragons and a seagull, all surrounded by light, and dragon wings reflect in the water.
Ursula K. Le Guin, with short brown hair, wearing a black dress and a beaded necklace, holds the Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Left Hand of Darkness.
The illustration for "Two Delays on the Northern Line" is a black and white image of puzzle pieces, not quite fitting together. At the bottom you see what looks like a page of a book and some small white shapes, perhaps pills, on a table next to it. In the bottom right corner piece, part of a train engine. In the middle left, a keyring with several skeleton keys. In the center, a person with short dark hair and a collared shirt. Several bottles overlap from the center piece to the center-top piece, and to the right there is a pile of envelopes.
The show cover for In Your Spare Time includes the name of the podcast, Ursula K. Le Guin's name, and a drawing (by Ursula) of a cat, loafed up, seen from behind. Under it, the content of this week's episode: Leah Schnelbach reads post 5, "Exorcists"
"The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary." from "A War Without End" by Ursula K. Le Guin, 2003
A graphic includes the text In Your Spare Time: Ursula K. Le Guin and Omar El Akkad reads Post 4, Someone Named Delores. The background is teal and white, and Ursula's drawing of a loafed-up cat, seen from behind, is at the bottom of the image.
The new edition of The Dispossessed has a simple design: the background is purple, and a white box in the middle includes the title, author, category (fiction) and original publication year (1974). Two orbs sit at the top and bottom of the box, representing the Urras and Anarres from the book.
Black-and-white illustration for "The Author of the Acacia Seeds" by Agata Lučić shows plants and animals, some with cords connecting them, suggesting communicatoin. Three penguins stand together, a horse-like shape is plugged into a large leaf, a dolphin stands alone, a human figure is plugged into a shrub, and a dog or wolf is connected to a large tree-plant with five leaves. At the back, a portrait of a carrot is framed on a wall.
graphic with the cover of In Your Spare Time, which shows a drawing of a cat, loafed up and facing away. Text underneath says "adrienne maree brown reads Post 3, 'The Absent Silence'"
A copy of the Library of America edition of The Complete Orsinia, containing Malafrena and Stories and Songs. The cover has a black and white photo of Ursula in the upper right corner, and "Le Guin" in a lush serif font above LOA's usual red-white-and-blue stripe
A copy of the graphic novel adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea. The cover shows a figure walking away from an ocean. The figure's shadow stretches out long and looming behind them.
In Your Spare Time: Julie Phillips reads post 1, "In Your Spare Time." The graphic images is in white and teal, and includes one of Ursula K. Le Guin's cat drawings. The cat is loafed up and facing away from the viewer, ears alert, tail probably about to swing.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Any list of great science fiction writers has to include Le Guin, and “The Left Hand of Darkness” is among her best works. The male human Genly Ai and the ambisexual alien Estraven navigate an icy planet that is as complex, grounded and fraught as the setting of any John le Carré spy novel. In addition to being a gripping adventure story, the book is a profound exploration of what’s left after a species puts aside standard ideas of gender. The book was a provocative read when it first came out, and it’s a provocative read now.
The periodical Western Humanities Review rests on a striped and pattered textile background. It is the summer of 1961 edition, and the table of contents includes "A World Divided in an Age of Space: A Symposium," with five parts; "The Next Human Nature" by Robert J. Blakely; "An die Musik" by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin; "Fathers and Sons: The Novel as Idyll" by James H. Justus; "William Styron's Long March: Absurdity and Authority" by Eugene McNamara; and poetry, notes, and book reviews. It cost 75 cents. There is a rock holding down the upper right side, where the corner wants to curl.
Journal of Therolinguistics, March 21 - July 5, Descanso Gardens Inset photo is of Bork Bibliothek by Nicole Brugger, and shows a brunette person reaching up to arrange a stick in one of many cubbies showing strange writing and other sticks.
Pard, a tuxedo cat, lounges on the back of the sofa. The podcast logo is overlaid on the photo, showing a drawing of a cat and the title IN YOUR SPARE TIME.
A drawing, by Ursula K. Le Guin, of a loafed-up black cat as seen from behind. The cat's tail curls around the podcast title IN YOUR SPARE TIME. Ursula K. Le Guin's name is at the top of the image, which has a teal background.
A mug with the Le Guin Prize logo, holding a spray of lavender, sits next to a stack of books that includes Ursula Whitcher's North Continent Ribbon; Eden Robins' Remember You Will Die; Nghi Vo's The City in Glass; Andrea Hairston's Archangels of Funk; Margaret Killjoy's The Sapling Cage; Vajra Chandrasekera's Rakesfall; Jared Pechacek's The West Passage; and Nalo Hopkinson's Blackheart Man.
Finding My Elegy by Ursula K. Le Guin. The cover has dry, tall grass in the foreground, then treetops, then clouds, then in the distance, the lights of a city. The sky is light darkening to purple at the top of the book.
A line drawing of a figure holding up a book, with handwriting next to it that says "you could change a writer's life." Beneath that, text reads "there's one week left to nominate books for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction!"
A copy of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, with a chartreuse post-it sticking out the side, and a bookmark poking out the top. This edition has cover art that shows a castle in the foreground; behind it are blue, cold mountains, and a pair of mournful-looking eyes hover in the sky above it all.
"Beneath memory and experience, beneath imagination and invention, beneath words, there are rhythms to which memory and imagination and words all move. The writer's job is to go down deep enough to feel that rhythm, find it, move to it, be moved by it, and let it move memory and imagination to find words." — Ursula K. Le Guin, 2000
A drawing, on the torn-off flap of an envelope, of a black-and-white cat face with a wide-eyed expression. Text over the top says "I am Leonard." Underneath, "I want to see the pictures of E + B."
The Compass Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin, cover art by Peter Goodfellow. The cover is hard to describe: there is a landscape that stretches to the horizon, with a body of water in the distance. Closer, there is a blocky city perched precariously on a mountainside. A sort of glowing orb floats in the sky; it has been cut in half, and on the inside there is an eye, but the space around the eye is reflecting the landscape. The colors tend to blues and browns, like a mountainous desert near the sea.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA SERIES Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Earthsea, Volume One A Wizard of Earthsea | The Tombs of Atuan | The Farthest Shore | Stories Brian Attebery, editor Library of America #400 / ISBN 978-1-59853-850-2 September 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Earthsea Volume Two Tehanu | Tales from Earthsea | The Other Wind | Stories Brian Attebery, editor Library of America #401 / ISBN 978-1-59853-851-9 September 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Earthsea (two-volume boxed set) ISBN 978-1-59853-852-6 September 2026
"Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe. We need the languages of both science and poetry to save us from merely stockpiling endless ‘information’ that fails to inform our ignorance or our irresponsibility." from "Deep in Admiration" by Ursula K. Le Guin
A black-and-white photo of Ursula K. Le Guin, standing at a lectern, smiling with her whole face. Her right hand cups her jaw and she is wearing either a watch or a bracelet; her top has an almost maze-like pattern.
Decals on a wall at Oregon Contemporary read: Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky. THE CREATION OF ÉA
The cover for the graphic novel of A Wizard of Earthsea shows a lone figure walking away from the ocean across a sandy beach, his shadow grown long behind him. In Polish, the title reads Czarnoksieznik z Archipelagu.
The cover of Les Quatre Vents du Désir is largely pink, with the title in a stylized compass rose in the center. A black cat sits primly at the bottom of the image, tail alert; a phoenix hovers over the upper right corner. There is also a harp, a donkey (I think), and a flower.
4. Bird at Dawn, February In the deep ogive of the dawn freshness, to hold still and so be given this first voice so far, so early in the dark that will be spring, that will again and still be all tendril, freshet, frond unfolding, song again and still again and still.
A photo collage of authors Mat Johnson, Nicola Griffith, Fonda Lee, Darcie Little Badger, and Pete Rock. It reads "Announcing our 2026 selection panel!" at the top, and has the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction logo at the bottom right.
"There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always." From “The Princess,” 1982, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The corner of p. 79 in Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats shows Ursula's drawing of a scruffy little cat, all black with green eyes and a slightly grumpy expression, sitting upright with her tail curled in front of her.
An oak tree shaped of panels of wood, with shelves in the trunk that hold Ursula K. Le Guin's works for visitors to read, is part of the exhibition Ursula K. Le Guin: A Larger Reality at Oregon Contemporary in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Mario Gallucci Studio.
A screenshot from the website Meduza reads: Last year was arguably the worst one yet for Russia’s publishing industry. Bookstores were raided; independent publishing houses were shuttered; publishers pulled beloved novels from sale; and an increasing number of books came out in censored form. While the book business has long been one of the riskiest in the country, the degree of pressure on the industry was still striking — and it’s only growing more intense. At Meduza’s request, literary critic Alex Mesropov takes stock of how the Kremlin reshaped the Russian book industry in 2025: On December 18, Russian police raided bookstores in at least three cities. This time, the target was Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness, published by the company Azbuka. Following the raids, the book was pulled from sale. First published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness was met with international acclaim and was even translated into Russian during the Soviet era. It explores themes of androgyny, interrogating gender and sexual stereotypes — which, by all appearances, is precisely what Russian security forces found objectionable.
Spørgmålet om Planeten Seggri by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Feberdrøm, cover art by Marcus Melo. The cover is pale yellow, with Ursula's name in brighter yellow against an orange background down the left side. The primary image is in woodcut style, showing a stylized image of three women who seem to be huddled together in the background; a castle-like shape circles a sword in the middle.
A close up photograph of part of the Mother Oak, the tree at the center of Oregon Contemporary's exhibition A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin. The tree holds a selection of Ursula's work for visitors to peruse, and also has recordings of her reading.
Two copies of Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin with illustrations by S.D. Schindler; the original cover has a pale yellow border around the art, and Ursula's name appears before the book title. The second has "A Catwings Tale" across the top, above the title, and Ursula's name below. Both covers show four tabby cats with wings perched on a branch.
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy, by Ursula K. Le Guin, with a new introduction by Ken Liu. This edition shows the author's name in yellow, the title in pink, and between them a stylized dragon (in blue) holding a simple rocket (in pink).
A screenshot of Rhea Seehorn as Carol Sturka in Pluribus. She's sitting on a poolside lounger and looks pensive as she looks up from reading The Left Hand of Darkness.
"It had always rained in western Oregon, but now it rained ceaselessly, steadily, tepidly. It was like living in a downpour of warm soup, forever." from The Lathe of Heaven, 1971
In this translation, The Dispossessed is called SHEVEK. The cover shows a man in a green long-sleeved top with a sort of sash printed with a landscape of trees and a river. He is holding up four fingers in front of a globe. In the foreground is a woman with dark hair and a black top, who looks off to the side.
This book is a fantasy of wizards, dragons, and shadows, played out in a world like and unlike this world, in an Archipelago of imagined islands. The geography of the dream is exact, as are the laws and limits of the magic used by the wizards in the isles. It is an adventure story, a Quest, a tale of a proud incautious boy who meddles too early with the Dark. It is a pure fantasy telling about real things: a boy coming into his power and his manhood, coming of age. Coming of Age in Earthsea, by Margaret Meade. -- I still find "A Wizard of the Isles" unsatisfactory as a title but more nearly satisfactory than any of the others. Except "I was a Teen-Age Wizard," which Krakie attributes to Herman. I do like that. Then we could have "Son of the Teen-Age Wizard--"
The title page of a 1974 Ace Books edition of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin shows the title without the initial capital letter on "The" and Ursula's last name as one word. Handwritten notes read "why is "The" capped on cover and spine but not on title page? (should be capped)" and "Insert proper space in 'Le guin' throughout - cover, spine, front matter, backmatter, advertising, et cetera"
A screenshot of Kirkus's list of the Best Teen & YA Graphic Literature of 2025 showing the cover of Fred Fordham's adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea, which is described as "A beloved cornerstone of the genre brought vividly to life through striking illustrations"
TLS: If you could make a change to anything you’ve written over the years, what would it be? UKL: In The Dispossessed, I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need. I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book.
A hardcover copy of Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books 2000—2016 by Ursula K. Le Guin, which has a text-only cover that shows the title and author's name along with the quote "Hard times are coming. ... We'll need writers who can remember freedom."
The title page of Ursula K. Le Guin: A Larger Reality, which shows the book's title and a line drawing of a rabbit that gives a sense of scruffiness (perhaps it's the tail). The rabbit (which might be a hare; your humble social media manager has no details) has very big pointy ears and a very pointy nose.
An image of a Jeopardy answer reads, "This sci-fi and fantasy author was honored on a 2021 stamp along with an image based on her 'The Left Hand of Darkness' novel"
This cover of the Earthsea Trilogy shows Tenar and Ged in a boat, with a golden dragon curling around the back of the image. Tenar, who is pale with dark hair, sits, holding closed a red cape with lavender trim. Ged, who holds a staff and wears an amulet around his neck, has somewhat darker skin and stands; light emanates from his staff. The boat has eyes painted on the prow.