Author(s): Ursula K. Le Guin

Novel | Dystopia, Science Fiction and Fantasy

A literary masterpiece from one of the great writers of our time: 'Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart' David Mitchell 'Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new' Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place. As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.

Review: Set against a background of state-fuelled anxieties about the loss of power and national identity ... With immense subtlety, Le Guin describes the changes in a relationship that almost founders on misapprehensions and mistakes ...The Left Hand of Darkness is a rich and complex story of friendship and love - GUARDIAN

Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own - BOSTON GLOBE

No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness ... Writers as diverse as Zadie Smith and Algis Budrys have cited [it] as an influence - PARIS REVIEW

It's a giant thought experiment that's also a cracking good read about gender

Prizes: Winner of Nebula Award 1970 (UK).

Author Biography: Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the finest writers of our time. Her books have attracted millions of devoted readers and won many awards, including the National Book Award, the Hugo and Nebula Awards and a Newbery Honor. Among her novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the six books of Earthsea have attained undisputed classic status; and her recent series, the Annals of the Western Shore, has won her the PEN Center USA Children's literature award and the Nebula Award for best novel. In 2014 Ursula Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She lived in Portland, Oregon, until she passed away in January 2018.