Women’s History Month: Ursula K. Le Guin

“What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself body and soul into the hands of a professional criminal?–because that is what every doctor who did an abortion was, whether he was an extortionist or an idealist. You know what it was like for her. You know and I know; that is why we are here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. 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.”

-Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Princess” 1982, Dancing at the Edge of the World

This quote gives me chills each time I read it.  The insight and compassion that Le Guin expresses hits at the core of the true meaning to love and support women through the freedom of choice. What strikes me the most is the exacting relevance this quote has at this precise moment in time, when it was originally shared in a speech given in 1982. It really highlights the fact that the fight for a woman’s right to choose is a never ending battle.

If you are unfamiliar with the woman who penned these words, absolutely delightful reading awaits you. Le Guin’s wit and humor are matched only by her insight and social commentary as she traverses many a taboo topic through a variety of genres.  Her body of work is vast, covers poetry and prose texts in a variety of modes including science fiction, fantasy, screenplays and essays.  I personally enjoy her essays the best, my heart being beset with analysis and criticism, but I have also been enchanted by her science fiction and gotten lost in her poetry.

Works:
Novelist Le Guin made her debut as in 1966 with Rocannon’s World, about a scientist who tries to save a colony from hostile alien invasion. Her first fantasy tale, ‘April in Paris’, was published in Amazing Stories in 1962. In the story figures from different historical periods travel to 15th-century Paris to meet and marry and this theme of journey is carried throughout many of her other works.

Le Guin’s subsequent works are numerous and include, possibly most famously, The Left Hand of Darkness. This novel completely blurs distinctions of sex and gender, creating a world wherein the people can metamorphize into either sex depending on the urges of the body.  The love story that results in the novel is odd and intriguing, but just as heartbreaking as any good love story.  Exhibiting an incredibly down-to-earth sensibility, Le Guin has posted many insightful musing on her website, including a rejection letter she received when she first submitted The Left Hand of Darkness for publication.  It is with this humor that she encourages all writers to keep writing, no matter what.

To date Le Guin has published seven books of poetry, twenty-two novels, over a hundred short stories (collected in eleven volumes), four collections of essays, twelve books for children, and four volumes of translation.

Awards:
Ursula K. Le Guin has won many Nebula and Hugo Awards, as well as a National Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Newbery Honor and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

Personal History:
Le Guin in an extremely private person, and lives her life quietly with her husband in Portland, Oregon.  She was born in Berkeley, California, the daughter of Dr. Alfred and Theodora Kroeber Quinn. Le Guin’s mother was a psychologist and writer of children’s stories. Her father was the head of UC-Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology, who published work on Native Americans. When Le Guin was a child, her parents taught her about myths and legends from around the world. “My father studied real cultures and I make them up,” she once said, “in a way, the same thing.”

Le Guin attended Radcliffe College, receiving her B.A. in 1951, and her master’s degree in romance languages from Columbia University in 1952. Her thesis dealt with Romance Literatures of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly French. Le Guin studied on a Fulbright scholarship in France, where she met Charles Le Guin, a historian. They married in 1953 and eventually settled in Portland, Oregon, where they raised their three children.