Le Guin, Ursula K(roeber)

Le Guin, Ursula K(roeber) (1929- ), American fantasy and science fiction writer, born in Berkeley, California, and educated at Radcliffe College. Her father was an anthropologist, her mother a writer of children's books, and Ursula grew up immersed in legends and myths. She earned a master's degree at Columbia University (1952), then won a Fulbright fellowship for study in France. There she met and married Charles Le Guin, returning with him to Macon, Georgia, where she taught French at Mercer University. In 1964, after she had written five unpublished novels, Rocannon's World appeared; it was the first of the Hainish cycle based on the Norse Odin myths. Later books included Planet of Exile (1966); City of Illusions (1967); The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), winner of the Nebula Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Hugo Award of the World Science Fiction Convention; The Word for World Is Forest (1972), winner of the Hugo Award; and The Dispossessed (1974), which also won the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. Le Guin also won the National Book Award for Children's Literature for The Farthest Shore (1972), the third book of her Earthsea trilogy. Her later works include Always Coming Home (1985), Eye of the Heron (1991), and Fish Soup (1992).