Le Guin wrote for us to learn not to be afraid of dragons, winged cats, darkness, night, and those who are different from ourselves; Because the way to become free individuals was to learn not to be afraid. And this road was full of dreams, fairy tales, and fantastic worlds.
On October 21, 1929, a daughter was born in Berkeley, California, to world-famous anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber and psychologist and writer Theodora Kroeber. They named her Ursula because she was born on St. Ursula's Day. Ursula grew up with her older brothers, Clifton, Theodore, and Karl, in a home where arts and cultural diversity were valued. The family had a large library and all children were encouraged to read, question, and discuss from an early age.
The family spent the summer months at the Kishamis Farm in Napa Valley, which has a unique nature and hosted guests from various cultures and backgrounds, as well as artist and scientist friends. The Krober Family had close relations with the American Indians here, and the natives were even a natural part of their lives. Alfred Kroeber was working with them. Theodora Kroeber wrote Ishi in Two Worlds, which tells the life of Ishi, the last member of the Yani tribe, who was killed by whites, and it was a success.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. She was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
Growing up among books, Ursula was fond of myths and legends. She was particularly interested in Scandinavian mythology and the Native American stories she heard from her father. Among the books she read were science fiction and fantasy literature. All of this would foster curiosity along with an incredible imagination, and little Ursula would write her first story when she was nine years old. This is how the writing career of Ursula Le Guin, who years later became one of the world's most loved writers and received the title of Living Legend, began.
When she was eleven, Ursula submitted her short story to Incredible Science Fiction Magazine, but it was rejected. Despite this, she did not give up writing but did not submit the poems and stories she wrote for the next ten years to be published.
Education, marriage, and early studies
Le Guin went to Radcliffe College, then graduated from Columbia University and received a master's degree in "Medieval and Renaissance Literature in France and Italy." While she won the Fulbright Scholarship and went to France to do her doctorate, she fell in love with historian Charles A. Le Guin, whom she met on the ship. She gave up on pursuing a doctorate and they married a few months later, in December 1953. They had three children.
She continued writing while raising her children. She edited, wrote literary reviews, worked on the editorial staff of various magazines, and taught undergraduate courses at many universities. The novels that Le Guin started writing in the early 1950s were rejected by the publishing houses to which she sent them as "incomprehensible". In the 1960s, she decided to return to her childhood passion, science fiction, and, at her publisher's request, wrote the first Earthsea story designed for adolescents. This short story was a small step in the Earthsea series that would later become a huge success.
In 1968, the first book of this important series, A Wizard of Earthsea, was published, followed by Le Guin's first major success, The World of Rocannon. Published in 1969, this book was also the first of a series of eight books that would later be called the Hainish Cycle.
Emerging career
The Left Hand of Darkness, which made a big impact and broke new ground in the literary world, was published in 1969, and Le Guin became the first woman to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards in the best novel category. This was followed by various works set in the Earthsea and Hainish universes. The World is Called a Forest, Malafrena, The Dispossessed, Narrative, Planet of Exile and City of Illusions were the works that brought Ursula Le Guin to her throne.
Le Guin produced works over a period of approximately sixty years, from 1959 to 2018; She wrote more than twenty novels, more than a hundred short stories, more than a dozen books of poetry, five translations, and thirteen children's books. She gained a unique place in the literary world with her works defined as "speculative fiction". Breaking traditions in fantasy and science fiction writing, she opened new paths in fiction, language, and characters. Instead of the science fiction model built on technological developments; She created science fiction writing in which politics, social science, psychology, and philosophy come to the fore and alternative forms of society are questioned. She won the admiration of her readers with the different ecosystems she designed and the planets she created.
It is no coincidence that science fiction stories feature many anthropologists or cultural observers and, as in Earthsea, dark-skinned heroes. Le Guin's works are the seeds that were planted in her childhood; They are the results of respect for existence, cultural diversity, human rights, and nature. Even though their heroes are men, they solve problems with thought, compromise, and analysis, not with space battles or laser guns like popular science fiction heroes.
The influences of Taoism, Zen philosophy, Feminism, and Carl Jung are strongly seen in her works. She dreams of a free and fair, classless, and exploitation-free world with her stories blended with mythology, psychology, and philosophy. Instead of building magical, strange worlds, she stands against social inequalities with her works that deal with women's rights, freedom, politics, anarchism, gender, sexuality, and growth by building new systems, new forms of relationships, and new societies.
Between dream and reality
In her works, the border between fantasy and reality is blurred, they do not exactly fit the definition of fantasy or science fiction. Le Guin says this about this situation:
“That's my problem, I do things that have no name. I've only been called a science fiction writer, but I'm not. I am a novelist and poet. Don't force me into your narrow patterns, I wouldn't fit into it anyway. I'm above these. “My arms stick out from those molds, in every direction.”
La Guin fought for science fiction and fantasy fiction, which were ignored and considered non-literary in the seventies, to gain a place in the field of literature as a respectable genre. She held workshops and talks on science fiction and fantasy writing at various universities in America and Australia.
In an article she wrote in 1974, she talked about the importance of imagination in fairy tales, legends, and science fiction, and stated that encouraged imagination would strengthen the self, otherwise, personality would not develop.
With her books, Le Guin appealed not only to young people and adults but also to children. The most popular of the books she wrote for children is; The Tale of the Winged Cats consists of four books: Four Kittens, Homecoming, New Friend, and Alone in the City.
He responded to those who said, "We should teach children right and wrong through realistic, life-appropriate books" as follows:
“The way to talk to children fully, honestly, and factually about good and evil is to talk about 'self', the innermost self. This is something that children can and already do cope with. In fact, that's our only job as we grow up: to be ourselves. What we need to grow is wholeness, the reality that transcends human virtue or vice. “We need knowledge, we need to know ourselves, we need to see ourselves and our shadow.”