Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was an American novelist, poet and essayist, born in Berkeley, California, to the anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kroeber. She studied French and Italian literature before turning to fiction in the late 1950s. A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) opened the Earthsea books, while The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974) belong to her Hainish cycle; each of the two won both the Hugo and the Nebula award. She also wrote for children, published poetry and essays, translated the Tao Te Ching, and received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She died at her home in Portland, Oregon.