67 Fun Facts About Ursula K. Le Guin

In which California city was Ursula Kroeber born in 1929?

Berkeley: her father Alfred Kroeber led the University of California's anthropology department there, and the family home was full of visiting academics.

Le Guin's mother Theodora Kroeber wrote a 1961 biography of which man, the last known Yahi?

Ishi lived out his last years at the University of California's anthropology museum, where Le Guin's father studied his Yahi language and ways.

Which famous physicist, a visitor to the Kroeber home, was Le Guin's model for Shevek in The Dispossessed?

Shevek is a physicist from the anarchist moon Anarres who travels to the wealthy planet Urras.

Ursula K. Le Guin earned her bachelor's degree in 1951 from which women's college?

Radcliffe: she went on to a master's at Columbia, then met historian Charles Le Guin on a transatlantic ship and married him within months.

Aboard which ocean liner did Ursula meet historian Charles Le Guin in 1953?

Queen Mary: both were Fulbright scholars heading to France, and they married in Paris later that year.

Which prestigious series began publishing Ursula K. Le Guin's works in 2016, a rare honor for a living writer?

The Library of America: she spent her last years revising Always Coming Home for it, and the expanded edition came out in 2019, after her death.

Le Guin's earliest fiction, including five rejected novels, was set in which invented European country?

Her first published poem and first published story were both Orsinian; the realistic Orsinian Tales finally appeared in 1976.

Which publisher released Le Guin's debut novel Rocannon's World in 1966?

Ace Books: it appeared as half of a two-novel Ace Double, and Ace editor Terry Carr later bought The Left Hand of Darkness for an upscale paperback line.

Which magazine ran Le Guin's story 'Nine Lives' under the byline 'U. K. Le Guin' after asking to hide her first name?

Playboy: its November 1969 issue credited the story to 'U. K. Le Guin', and later reprints restored her full name.

Which Archmage of Roke dies driving away the shadow Ged looses in A Wizard of Earthsea?

Nemmerle dies from the effort of banishing it, and his successor, Gensher, warns Ged that the shadow seeks to possess him.

On which island of Earthsea is Ged born?

Gont is where the boy raises a thick fog that hides his village from Kargish raiders.

What is Ged's childhood name before Ogion reveals his true name?

Duny was his child-name; his aunt, the village witch, began teaching him after he copied her words and called the goats to him.

Which fellow student's taunts provoke Ged into the duel that looses the shadow?

Jasper sneered at Ged during a festival, so Ged tried to raise a legendary dead woman's spirit and loosed the shadow instead.

What kind of creature is Hoeg, the pet Ged adopts at the wizard school on Roke?

An otak: Ged later finds Hoeg's frozen body in the snow at the Court of the Terrenon while fleeing the Stone's servants.

In The Tombs of Atuan, which name, meaning 'the Eaten One', does Tenar bear as priestess?

Arha replaces her birth name at the Tombs, and only after she escapes with Ged does she take back the name Tenar.

Which author chose A Wizard of Earthsea for the Wall Street Journal's book club in 2014?

Margaret Atwood picked a book whose climax has Ged name the shadow with his own name, so it merges with him and he is whole.

Tenar, heroine of The Tombs of Atuan, is raised as high priestess to which unseen deities?

The Nameless Ones demand her service, but after trapping Ged in their labyrinth Tenar keeps him alive and escapes with him.

After escaping the Tombs of Atuan, Ged and Tenar carry the rejoined Ring of Erreth-Akbe to which island?

Havnor receives them in triumph, because the Ring's broken Bond-Rune, lost for centuries, was needed for peace in Earthsea.

What recognition did The Tombs of Atuan receive in 1972?

Newbery Honor Book status came for a heroine whose duties as priestess include letting prisoners starve, an act that haunts her.

Which young prince accompanies Ged in The Farthest Shore?

Arren, whose true name is Lebannen, follows Ged into the land of the dead and returns to be hailed as Earthsea's new king.

What is the name of Ged's boat in the Earthsea books?

Lookfar carries Ged and the prince to Hort Town, where the wizard Hare has traded away his magic for a promise of life after death.

Which dark mage, obsessed with escaping death, is the antagonist of The Farthest Shore?

Ged spends all his wizardly power sealing the breach Cob made between the living and the dead.

The Farthest Shore won which prize in 1973?

National Book Award for Children's Books winner, it sends Ged and a young prince beyond the realm of death to bring back the world's magic.

Tehanu, published in 1990, was initially given what subtitle?

The Last Book of Earthsea proved wrong: the subtitle was later dropped, and two more Earthsea books followed in 2001.

In Tehanu, Ged arrives near death on the back of which dragon?

Kalessin, the eldest dragon, flew Ged and the prince back from Selidor, leaving the prince on Roke and carrying Ged on alone.

What does the name Therru, given to the child Tenar adopts in Tehanu, mean?

Flame suits the badly burned girl, who is eventually revealed to be a dragon born in human form.

The Other Wind, the last Earthsea book, took which prize in 2002?

World Fantasy Award for Best Novel went to the book in which Irian, a dragon, takes a woman's shape to address the king's council.

In The Left Hand of Darkness, envoy Genly Ai is sent to which ice-covered planet?

Gethen, which the Ekumen calls Winter, does join the Ekumen, but only after Estraven is shot at the border while helping Ai.

In The Left Hand of Darkness, what is the monthly period when people become sexually male or female?

Kemmer can bring either sex, with no predisposition, which is how Argaven, the king of Karhide, comes to be pregnant.

Karhide and which other nation are the two great states on Genly Ai's planet?

Orgoreyn's secret police arrest Ai and send him to a labor camp, from which Estraven rescues him.

What is the name of the intricate code of unspoken rules and courtesy that governs behavior in Karhide?

Shifgrethor rules the court where, on the morning of Ai's audience, Estraven, the prime minister helping him, is exiled as a traitor.

Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, about colonists enslaving a forest people, was shaped by which war?

The Vietnam War shadows the story, whose peaceful natives drive the colonists out but learn to kill in doing so.

Le Guin's story 'Vaster Than Empires and More Slow' takes its title from a poem by which writer?

Andrew Marvell's line is about a slow 'vegetable love', and the story's alien world is one vast mind made of forest.

Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed carries which subtitle?

An Ambiguous Utopia fits Anarres, a society with no written laws or property whose unwritten conventions still frustrate Shevek.

The Dispossessed is set on the twin worlds Anarres and Urras orbiting which star?

Tau Ceti's twin worlds include the moon Anarres, settled by anarchists who came from its rich mother planet, Urras.

What name did Le Guin coin in 1966 for a device allowing instantaneous interstellar communication?

Ansible was later borrowed by Orson Scott Card, who kept her name for the instant communicator in Ender's Game and its sequels.

In Le Guin's 1971 novel, what is the profession of George Orr, whose dreams rewrite reality?

Draftsman George Orr takes drugs to stop dreaming, and when he is caught he is ordered into therapy with Dr. William Haber.

Which US broadcaster aired the low-budget 1980 TV film of Le Guin's novel about George Orr?

PBS aired the film in 1980, but it then grew hard to see for years, until PBS stations showed it again and a DVD came out in 2000.

Le Guin's 1971 novel about George Orr is titled from a mistranslation of which Chinese philosopher?

Chuang Tzu once dreamed he was a butterfly, then woke unsure whether he was a man who had dreamed it or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.

Le Guin published her own translation of which Chinese classic in 1997?

Tao Te Ching ideas of balance run through Earthsea, where careless magic can upset the world's equilibrium.

Which Le Guin novel did she acknowledge was influenced by Philip K. Dick's 1960s novels?

The Lathe of Heaven has its dreamer turn everyone gray when a psychiatrist pushes him to abolish racism.

The Word for World Is Forest first appeared in 1972 in which Harlan Ellison anthology?

Again, Dangerous Visions was Harlan Ellison's 1972 sequel, and the third volume he announced went unpublished for decades.

On which planet do Terran colonists enslave the peaceful natives in The Word for World Is Forest?

Athshe's natives call the colonists 'yumens', and under their leader Selver they finally strike back at their captors.

'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' won which prize in 1974?

Hugo Award for Best Short Story went to her parable of a city whose happiness depends on one child's endless misery.

In a 1977 Nebula Award protest, Le Guin objected to the treatment of which writer?

Stanisław Lem had his honorary membership cancelled in 1976, setting off a major rift among the group's members.

Always Coming Home (1985) is an anthropological portrait of which fictional future people?

The Kesh reject governance and keep their population small enough for their land to feed them.

Le Guin's picture books about Mrs. Jane Tabby's four kittens show them born with what unusual feature?

Wings let the kittens soar away from the dangerous city slums where they were born, but country life proves just as hard.

Le Guin's last novel, Lavinia (2008), retells the story of a minor character from which epic poem?

The Aeneid never gives Lavinia a word to say, so Le Guin lets her tell her own story and talk with the dying Virgil's ghost.

Which volume of Le Guin's trilogy Annals of the Western Shore won a Nebula Award for Best Novel?

Powers follows Gavir, a slave with a perfect memory, who flees his city after his sister is killed.

Le Guin was disappointed when Studio Ghibli handed Tales from Earthsea to which relative of Hayao Miyazaki?

His son, Gorō, got the film, and Le Guin agreed to it on the understanding that Hayao would oversee the project.

Le Guin's essay 'A Whitewashed Earthsea' attacked which TV network's 2004 miniseries of her books?

Sci Fi's miniseries cast a white actor as Ged, whom Le Guin had written as a boy with red-brown skin.

Le Guin resigned from the Authors Guild in 2009 over its deal with which company?

Google's deal led her to tell the Guild it had decided 'to deal with the devil' and abandoned the whole concept of copyright.

Which company did Ursula K. Le Guin criticise in her 2014 National Book Foundation medal speech?

Amazon was the 'profiteer' she said had tried 'to punish a publisher for disobedience' during its ebook fight with Hachette.

Which artist illustrated The Books of Earthsea, the edition that won Le Guin a posthumous Hugo in 2019?

Charles Vess sent Le Guin rough pencil sketches, and she had him adjust details before inking.

Which 1986 Le Guin essay critiques the traditional idea of the hero in storytelling?

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction retells human origins with a bag for carrying things, not a weapon, as the first technology.

Le Guin's 1976 essay defending The Left Hand of Darkness against feminist critics was titled what?

Is Gender Necessary? later got a 'Redux' version, in which she regretted locking the novel's characters into heterosexuality.

Which 2000 novel was Le Guin's final Hainish novel?

The Telling sends the observer Sutty to the planet Aka, where the state has outlawed the old storytelling faith she comes to study.

Le Guin changed her mind about letting Earthsea become an anime after watching which film?

My Neighbor Totoro won her over, so she sent word through her Japanese translator that she would now welcome talking about a film.

In a 1982 Le Guin story, nine women from Peru, Chile and Argentina reach which place in 1909?

The South Pole party keeps its feat a secret, and the narrator stores her report in an attic trunk rather than publish it.

Which Le Guin book, drawn from her blog, won the 2018 Hugo for Best Related Work?

No Time to Spare gathers posts from a blog she started partly inspired by Nobel laureate José Saramago's blog.

Which structure is the central symbol of Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed?

A wall is its dominant image, and Shevek sets out to tear down the walls of distrust that divide Anarres and Urras.

Which Le Guin novel follows Luz, a City Boss's daughter on the former prison colony Victoria?

The Eye of the Heron turns on peace-loving farmers who plan a new settlement in defiance of the City Bosses.

Who gave Ged the half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe he carried before The Tombs of Atuan?

A marooned old woman gave him the broken bracelet, and only years later did a dragon tell him it was half of the Ring.

In A Wizard of Earthsea, which Lady of the Court of the Terrenon is lost fleeing as a gull?

Serret was the girl Ged once tried to impress, and after she takes a gull's shape the Stone's creatures catch her.

In The Left Hand of Darkness, which religion's Foretellers promise Genly Ai success within five years?

The Handdara Foretellers answer 'yes', and they prove right when Karhide finally agrees to join the Ekumen.

Which pacifist anarchist did Le Guin cite as an influence on The Dispossessed?

Peter Kropotkin reached her after she set out to study peace and pacifism, which led her to the nonviolent anarchist writers.

Le Guin became only the second woman named a Grand Master by which organisation?

The SF and Fantasy Writers of America named her a Grand Master decades after her 1977 Nebula Award protest over its treatment of a fellow writer.