Today we are talking about a woman who is called "bed, journalist and literary critic." Ursula Le Guin is her name. And the most famous works of this amazing woman are connected with the cycle about the Earthsea.
About the writer
Le Guin Ursula has long been recognized as a classic of world fiction of the 20th century. This American writer has long been at the same level with such literary giants as A. Azimov, S. Lem, R. Sheckley, R. Bradbury. And the secret to Le Guin's success is a simple plot woven into a complex composition; main characters from among ordinary people; philosophical meaning; accessible, but at the same time rich and beautiful language; proximity to reality. This all makes the worlds invented by the writer incredibly lively.
Now let's talk in more detail about the life of the writer. In addition to the biography, in our article you can also find her photo.
Ursula Le Guin: The Early Years and Marriage
The future writer was born in 1929. Her birthplace is the small town of Berkeley, located in California. Her father, Alfred Kreber, was a well-known anthropologist who studied oriental culture. Mother, Theodora Kreber, is a writer. Parents identified her interest in literature and Eastern traditions, which are so very different from European ones.
Le Guin Ursula entered Cambridge College. After graduating, in 1952 she defended a thesis at Columbia University . The theme of her work was: "Romantic literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance." After the defense, she received a philological diploma and began to teach literature, working at universities in the USA, England and Australia. At the same time, Ursula taught science fiction courses, because this genre was her long-standing passion.
With her future husband, Charles Le Guin, she met in 1951 and almost immediately married him. Today they have a son and two daughters. Since 1958, the family has been living in Oregon, Portland.
First works
Le Guin Ursula wrote her first short story in 1961. He was called "The Dying Musician" and talked about those obstacles and everyday problems that prevent a genius from fulfilling his dreams. Subsequently, this work was included in the collection of stories about the fictional country of Orsinia, located in Eastern Europe. This country resembles Poland, which fell in the middle of the 20th century under the rule of the Soviet Union.
The collection, despite the genre of alternative history, was attributed to real literature, which can be printed in a school textbook. Already in this book, the talent of Ursula Le Guin was revealed.
In 1979, the novel "Malafrena" was added to the Orsinian stories, the main theme of which was the eternal problem of finding yourself, your vocation and place in life.
First post
The writer's work and her biography are very interesting. Ursula Le Guin was first published in 1962, and it was not a story from a cycle about Orsinia. This turned out to be the story "April in Paris", published in the literary collection "Science Fiction-1962". The work told about single people who suffer from the same problems, regardless of their social status and status in society. The story received good marks from both readers and critics.
Only in 1963, the fantastic stories of the writer were separately published. And they have already manifested the characteristic Le Guin style, more suitable for the narrative of parables. Despite this, the complex characters of the heroes and too rich a rich narrative overshadowed the deep meaning of the works. In Russia, the most famous story of this period is considered to be "The Box in which there was darkness." This work describes a world where there are no concepts of evil, death and shadow.
Earthsea
Le Guin Ursula gained great popularity and fame precisely thanks to this cycle. However, it began, oddly enough, with the usual stories published in the next collection of Science Fiction-1964. These were two works: “Releasing the Spell” and “The Rule of Names”. It was they who laid the foundation for the cycle of the Earthsea. Even then, the writer began to add, like a puzzle, a future mysterious world full of strange magic. And in the first stories, the writer begins to explain the rules of someone else's reality: no one should be given a true name, and even the most powerful wizard cannot select true freedom.
Only four years later, the first novel of this cycle appeared - “The Wizard of the Earth Sea”. The work in the same 1968 was awarded the Boston Globe-Horm Book Publishing House Award, and a few years later it received the Lewis Carroll Award. Then the following novels of the cycle came out - “Tombs of Atuan” and “On the Last Bank”. The first book was awarded the Nyuery Silver Medal , and the second was awarded the United States National Literature Award as the best work for children, published in 1972.
In 1979, the writer received the title of "Grand Master of Fantasy."
Enormous success was enjoyed not only by the plot of books about the Earthsea, but also by the image of the protagonist - Archmage Ged-Hawk. Ursula Le Guin was the first writer to come up with the story of an orphan boy who enters a school for wizards, overcomes many difficulties, fights evil and, at the end, attains great strength and wisdom.
After the publication of the first three novels, the writer left the world of the Earth Sea for almost 20 years. Only in 1990, a sequel came out entitled "Tehanyu: the last book about the Earth's Sea." Readers recognized this part as the most unsuccessful, but professional critics and literature praised it. Moreover, for this book, the writer received the most prestigious award of American science fiction writers "Nebula-90".
However, this book was far from the last, followed by a collection of short stories and another novel.
The last novel about the Earthsea
The creativity of Ursula Le Guin is inextricably linked with the world of the Earth Sea. Perhaps that is why the writer is so hard to part with him. To date, the last book of the cycle is the novel “On Other Winds,” which in 2002 was awarded the World Fantasy Prize.
Thus, to date, 5 novels and several stories related to the cycle of the Earth Sea have been published. Is this the ending? Only Ursula Le Guin herself can answer this question.