As a feminist, pacifist, and environmentalist, as a pioneer of what we might now think of as queer identities, and as a writer inclined toward anarchist thought, her work, more than any other, seemed to embody the spirit of the city.Īt that point, I figured it was time to read the science fiction novels she’s famous for, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed-both of which struck me with great force. Le Guin, who’d lived there for over five decades. Portland is a literary town, home to many famous names, but I soon found that none loomed larger than that of Ursula K. I would discover that more than 20 years later, when I moved to Portland, Oregon, to pursue an MFA in writing. The Earthsea novels were among the most beloved of my childhood, but they did not suggest to me, on first read, the larger scope of Le Guin’s vision.Įach of these books challenged me to reimagine what human culture might look like-challenged me to imagine how we might throw off the death grip of capitalism, and its attendant values of patriarchy and racism. Cherryh and Anne McCaffrey, Patricia McKillip and Stephen R. But I loved the work of many authors I found there on my parents’ shelves-authors like C.J. The Earthsea novels are set in a world where words are, quite literally, magic, and I loved them, the way so many young writers do. My mother read the first three Earthsea novels when she was pregnant with me, and when I began to work my way through my parents’ collection of science fiction and fantasy as a tween, those slim, sepiaed paperbacks with their iconic covers-depicting a dragon, a sail boat, and a castle upon a stylized island-couldn’t help but catch my eye.
Though in a way you could say Le Guin was always with me. Even as I traced the same route through my neighborhood each day, I was sailing through an enchanted archipelago-and in a time when travel had become impossible, I voyaged among the stars. Le Guin, and during this time, as my external world grew smaller, my internal world expanded. I spent the better part of 20 immersed in the work of the great speculative writer Ursula K.
If this time period happens to fall during a global pandemic, so much the better. If you are luckier still, this author will be at least as old as your mother, astoundingly prolific, and will have published so many novels that reading them back to back will take you well over a year. If you’re lucky in this life, you may discover an author whose work moves you so deeply that reading it is like going to church-like listening to your own soul speaking quietly as you turn the pages.
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