Ursula K. Le Guin Trivia
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67 free Ursula K. Le Guin trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Ursula K. Le Guin trivia quiz spans the whole of her sixty-year career: the Berkeley childhood among anthropologists, the five rejected Orsinia novels, the Ace Double debut Rocannon's World, and the two masterpieces that arrived back to back in 1968 and 1969, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness. From there it moves through The Lathe of Heaven, The Word for World Is Forest, The Dispossessed, 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas', Always Coming Home, Tehanu, The Other Wind, Lavinia and the Annals of the Western Shore. Expect questions on Ged, Tenar, Ogion and Roke; on Genly Ai, Estraven, kemmer and shifgrethor; on Shevek, Anarres and the ansible; on George Orr's reality-bending dreams; and on the awards, feuds, translations and adaptations, from the 1980 PBS Lathe of Heaven that Le Guin actually liked to the Ghibli Earthsea film that disappointed her. Some questions suit anyone who has read one Earthsea book; others are for readers who know why she refused a Nebula in 1977. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on Le Guin and each work, and each explanation adds one further detail. Play, see your score, and share it with the readers in your life.
30 of 67 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which California city was Ursula Kroeber born in 1929?
Berkeley
Berkeley: her father Alfred Kroeber led the University of California's anthropology department there, and the family home was full of visiting academics.
Q 02Le Guin's mother Theodora Kroeber wrote a 1961 biography of which man, the last known Yahi?
Ishi
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.
Q 03Which famous physicist, a visitor to the Kroeber home, was Le Guin's model for Shevek in The Dispossessed?
Robert Oppenheimer
Shevek is a physicist from the anarchist moon Anarres who travels to the wealthy planet Urras.
Q 04Ursula K. Le Guin earned her bachelor's degree in 1951 from which women's college?
Radcliffe
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.
Q 05Aboard which ocean liner did Ursula meet historian Charles Le Guin in 1953?
Queen Mary
Queen Mary: both were Fulbright scholars heading to France, and they married in Paris later that year.
Q 06Which prestigious series began publishing Ursula K. Le Guin's works in 2016, a rare honor for a living writer?
The Library of America
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.
Q 07Le Guin's earliest fiction, including five rejected novels, was set in which invented European country?
Orsinia
Her first published poem and first published story were both Orsinian; the realistic Orsinian Tales finally appeared in 1976.
Q 08Which publisher released Le Guin's debut novel Rocannon's World in 1966?
Ace Books
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.
Q 09Which magazine ran Le Guin's story 'Nine Lives' under the byline 'U. K. Le Guin' after asking to hide her first name?
Playboy
Playboy: its November 1969 issue credited the story to 'U. K. Le Guin', and later reprints restored her full name.
Q 10Which Archmage of Roke dies driving away the shadow Ged looses in A Wizard of Earthsea?
Nemmerle
Nemmerle dies from the effort of banishing it, and his successor, Gensher, warns Ged that the shadow seeks to possess him.
Q 11On which island of Earthsea is Ged born?
Gont
Gont is where the boy raises a thick fog that hides his village from Kargish raiders.
Q 12What is Ged's childhood name before Ogion reveals his true name?
Duny
Duny was his child-name; his aunt, the village witch, began teaching him after he copied her words and called the goats to him.
Q 13Which fellow student's taunts provoke Ged into the duel that looses the shadow?
Jasper
Jasper sneered at Ged during a festival, so Ged tried to raise a legendary dead woman's spirit and loosed the shadow instead.
Q 14What kind of creature is Hoeg, the pet Ged adopts at the wizard school on Roke?
Q 21What is the name of Ged's boat in the Earthsea books?
Lookfar
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.
Q 22Which dark mage, obsessed with escaping death, is the antagonist of The Farthest Shore?
Cob
Ged spends all his wizardly power sealing the breach Cob made between the living and the dead.
Q 23The Farthest Shore won which prize in 1973?
National Book Award for Children's Books
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.
An otak
An otak: Ged later finds Hoeg's frozen body in the snow at the Court of the Terrenon while fleeing the Stone's servants.
Q 15In The Tombs of Atuan, which name, meaning 'the Eaten One', does Tenar bear as priestess?
Arha
Arha replaces her birth name at the Tombs, and only after she escapes with Ged does she take back the name Tenar.
Q 16Which author chose A Wizard of Earthsea for the Wall Street Journal's book club in 2014?
Margaret Atwood
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.
Q 17Tenar, heroine of The Tombs of Atuan, is raised as high priestess to which unseen deities?
The Nameless Ones
The Nameless Ones demand her service, but after trapping Ged in their labyrinth Tenar keeps him alive and escapes with him.
Q 18After escaping the Tombs of Atuan, Ged and Tenar carry the rejoined Ring of Erreth-Akbe to which island?
Havnor
Havnor receives them in triumph, because the Ring's broken Bond-Rune, lost for centuries, was needed for peace in Earthsea.
Q 19What recognition did The Tombs of Atuan receive in 1972?
Newbery Honor Book
Newbery Honor Book status came for a heroine whose duties as priestess include letting prisoners starve, an act that haunts her.
Q 20Which young prince accompanies Ged in The Farthest Shore?
Arren
Arren, whose true name is Lebannen, follows Ged into the land of the dead and returns to be hailed as Earthsea's new king.
Q 24Tehanu, published in 1990, was initially given what subtitle?
The Last Book of Earthsea
The Last Book of Earthsea proved wrong: the subtitle was later dropped, and two more Earthsea books followed in 2001.
Q 25In Tehanu, Ged arrives near death on the back of which dragon?
Kalessin
Kalessin, the eldest dragon, flew Ged and the prince back from Selidor, leaving the prince on Roke and carrying Ged on alone.
Q 26What does the name Therru, given to the child Tenar adopts in Tehanu, mean?
Flame
Flame suits the badly burned girl, who is eventually revealed to be a dragon born in human form.
Q 27The Other Wind, the last Earthsea book, took which prize in 2002?
World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
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.
Q 28In The Left Hand of Darkness, envoy Genly Ai is sent to which ice-covered planet?
Gethen
Gethen, which the Ekumen calls Winter, does join the Ekumen, but only after Estraven is shot at the border while helping Ai.
Q 29In The Left Hand of Darkness, what is the monthly period when people become sexually male or female?
Kemmer
Kemmer can bring either sex, with no predisposition, which is how Argaven, the king of Karhide, comes to be pregnant.
Q 30Karhide and which other nation are the two great states on Genly Ai's planet?
Orgoreyn
Orgoreyn's secret police arrest Ai and send him to a labor camp, from which Estraven rescues him.