Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88
Source: New York Times
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.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/obituaries/ursula-k-le-guin-acclaimed-for-her-fantasy-fiction-is-dead-at-88.html
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)bobbieinok
(12,858 posts)Ishy was the last living speaker of a Native American language.
When he was in grade school, my son's class watched the video about him. Then when my son learned this was part of Le Guin's backgroud he felt that explained a lot about her work.
jeffreyi
(1,943 posts)Theodora Kroeber, Ms. LeGuin's mother, wrote "Ishi in two worlds". Much respect to them all.
shanny
(6,709 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,857 posts)I didn't read all of her books, but the ones I did read I liked a great deal.
kimmylavin
(2,284 posts)I remember how much that line struck me.
Always liked her work - even included a passage from one of her books in my wedding.
This is a great loss.
DinahMoeHum
(21,788 posts)and reading it was well.
ansible
(1,718 posts)She literally changed my life forever when I found "A Wizard of Earthsea" abandoned in a storage room when I was a teenager, I had no prior interest to reading books before then and it was a mindblowing experience that opened my eyes to a whole new world.
burrowowl
(17,641 posts)dobleremolque
(491 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)You leave a great legacy!