Ursula Kroeber
11 min read
Reading time
2,116
Words
Published
3
Film credits
144
Books
60
Awards
Ursula K. Le Guin 1929-2018 wrote science fiction and fantasy, winning multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea series, as well as the National Book Award. Influenced by her father, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, her work examined gender, society, and anthropology.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Ursula K. Le Guin — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Ursula K. Le Guin by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Ursula K. Le Guin — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
On October 21, 1929, in Berkeley, California, Ursula Kroeber was born to anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber and writer Theodora Kroeber. Growing up in an academic household, she developed a love for storytelling and diverse cultures. She attended Berkeley High School, graduating in 1947 alongside Philip K. Dick, though they did not know each other. She then earned a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College and a master’s degree in French literature from Columbia University.
The Earthsea series, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968 and later adapted into the film Tales from Earthsea 2006, launched Le Guin’s fame. She also wrote the novel The Lathe of Heaven, adapted into a television film in 1980, and the novel The Telling. Her short story “Nine Lives” was also published. Le Guin won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, the National Book Award, and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
Ursula K. Le Guin married Charles A. Le Guin on December 22, 1953; the couple met in Paris, France, while both were Fulbright scholars. They had three children: Elisabeth born 1957, Caroline born 1959, and Theodore born 1964. The family lived in Portland, Oregon, from 1959 until her death. Her father was anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber, and her mother was writer Theodora Kroeber. She had one sibling, Karl Kroeber.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s speculative works tackled gender, society, and human nature. She was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and received a Library of Congress Living Legend award. In 2021, a United States commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series honored her. She is remembered for her Earthsea series and novels like The Left Hand of Darkness.
Browse the complete filmography of Ursula K. Le Guin — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Ursula K. Le Guin — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Ursula K. Le Guin's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
Could not load more books.
A wall of memorable lines from Ursula K. Le Guin — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
The Only Thing That Makes Life Possible Is Permanent, Intolerable Uncertainty; Not Knowing What Comes Next.
I Tend to Avoid Fiction About Dysfunctional Urban Middle Class People Written in the Present Tense. This Makes It Hard to Find a New Novel, Sometimes.
I Am an Atheist. but I Am an Artist Too, and Therefore a Liar. Distrust Everything I Say. I Am Telling the Truth.
If You Deny Any Affinity with Another Person or Kind of Person, If You Declare It to Be Wholly Different from Yourself as Men Have Done to Women, and Class Has Done to Class, and Nation Has Done to Nation You May Hate It, or Deify It, but in Either Case You Have Denied Its Spiritual Equality, and Its Human Reality. You Have Made It into a Thing, to Which the Only Possible Relationship Is a Power Relationship. and Thus You Have Fatally Impoverished Your Own Reality.
Belief in Heaven and Hell Is a Big Deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and Some Forms of Doctrinaire Buddhism. for the Rest of Us It’s Simply Meaningless. We Don’t Live in Order to Die, We Live in Order to Live.
We Read Books to Find Out Who We Are.
The Artist Deals in What Cannot Be Said in Words. the Artist Whose Medium Is Fiction Does This iN Words. the Novelist Says in Words What Cannot Be Said in Words.
All of Us Have to Learn How to Invent Our Lives, Make Them Up, Imagine Them. We Need to Be Taught These Skills; We Need Guides to Show Us How. If We Don’t, Our Lives Get Made up for Us by Other People.
If You Cannot or Will Not Imagine the Results of Your Actions, There’s No Way You Can Act Morally or Responsibly. Little Kids Can’t Do It; Babies Are Morally Monsters Completely Greedy. Their Imagination Has to Be Trained into Foresight and Empathy.
Sometimes One’s Very Angry and Preaches, but I Know That to Clinch a Point Is to Close It. to Leave the Reader Free to Decide What Your Work Means, That’s the Real Art; It Makes the Work Inexhaustible.
As a Fiction Writer, I Don’t Speak Message. I Speak Story. Sure, My Story Means Something, but If You Want to Know What It Means, You Have to Ask the Question in Terms Appropriate to Storytelling. Terms Such as Message Are Appropriate to Expository Writing, Didactic Writing, and Sermons Different Languages from Fiction. the Notion That a Story Has a Message Assumes That It Can Be Reduced to a Few Abstract Words, Neatly Summarized in a School or College Examination Paper or a Brisk Critical Review.
To Think That Realistic Fiction Is by Definition Superior to Imaginative Fiction Is to Think Imitation Is Superior to Invention.
I Believe That Maturity Is Not an Outgrowing, but a Growing Up; That an Adult Is Not a Dead Child, but a Child Who Survived. I Believe That All the Best Faculties of a Mature Human Being Exist in the Child, and That If These Faculties Are Encouraged in Youth They Will Act Well and Wisely in the Adult, but That If They Are Repressed and Denied in the Child They Will Stunt and Cripple the Adult Personality. and Finally, I Believe That One of the Most Deeply Human, and Humane, of These Faculties Is the Power of Imagination: so That It Is Our Pleasant Duty … to Encourage That Faculty of Imagination in Our Children, to Encourage It to Grow Freely, to Flourish Like the Green Bay Tree, by Giving It the Best, Absolutely the Best and Purest, Nourishment That It Can Absorb. and Never Under Any Circumstances, to Squelch It, or Sneer at It, or Imply That It Is Childish, or Unmanly, or Untrue.
We Are Volcanoes. When We Offer Our Experience as Our Truth, as Human Truth, All the Maps Change. There Are New Mountains.
Whenever They Tell Me Children Want This Sort of Book and Children Need This Sort of Writing, I Am Going to Smile Politely and Shut My Earlids. I Am a Writer, Not a Caterer. There Are Plenty of Caterers. but What Children Most Want and Need Is What We and They Don’t Know They Want and Don’t Think They Need, and Only Writers Can Offer It to Them.
I Have Never Found Anywhere, in the Domain of Art, That You Don’t Have to Walk To. There Is Quite an Array of Jets, Buses and Hacks Which You Can Ride to Success; but That Is a Different Destination. There Are, of Course, Roads. Great Artists Make the Roads; Good Teachers and Good Companions Can Point Them Out. but There Ain’t No Free Rides, Baby. No Hitchhiking. and If You Want to Strike Out in Any New Direction You Go Alone. with a Machete in Your Hand and the Fear of God in Your Heart.
Little-known facts about Ursula K. Le Guin — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
She graduated from Berkeley High School in 1947, the same year as Philip K. Dick, but they did not know each other.
Ursula met her husband Charles A. Le Guin in Paris, France, where both were Fulbright scholars.
Her father Alfred Kroeber was a founder of modern anthropology, and her mother Theodora Kroeber Quinn was a writer.
She served as the basis for F.M. Busby’s character Rissa Kerguelen, appearing in at least three science fiction novels; the name is an anagram of Le Guin.
Best known for her science fiction and fantasy stories.
She lived in Portland, Oregon, from 1959 until her death in 2018.
She had three children: Elisabeth b. 1957, Caroline b. 1959, and Theodore b. 1964.
A biography and bibliography appear in “Contemporary Authors,” New Revision Series, Vol. 132, pp. 232-240 Thomson Gale, 2005.
She was pictured on a three-ounce-rate USA commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series, issued on July 27, 2021 price 95¢.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Ursula K. Le Guin.
Celebrities similar to Ursula K. Le Guin — same craft, ranked by reach.
🇷🇺 Russia
🇯🇵 Japan
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇦🇷 Argentina
🇺🇸 United States
🇫🇷 France
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇺🇸 United States
🇷🇺 Russia
🇺🇸 United States
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇨🇳 China
