The first ever broadcast dramatisation of Ursula Le Guin's seminal science fiction novel. On an alien world in the middle of an ice age, one man prepares for the biggest mission of his life. Alone and unarmed, Genly Ai has been sent from Earth to persuade the people of Gethen to join the Ekumen, a union of planets. But it's a task fraught with danger. Genly is shocking to the natives, for Gethen is a world in which humans are ambigendered - everyone can be a mother, and everyone can be a father. First Minister Estraven is the only person who champions Genly's cause, but their relationship is deeply incomprehensible and troubling. As the duo embark on a journey that will take them to the edge of their physical and emotional endurance, the stakes are high - to save a world from war and save their own lives. Ursula Le Guin's award-winning masterpiece was one of the first feminist SF novels, and this compelling dramatisation is both a subtle exploration of gender and a thrilling tale of love, betrayal and survival in a landscape of endless snow and ice. It stars Lesley Sharp (Scott & Bailey), Toby Jones (Dad's Army) and Louise Brealey (Sherlock).
Author
Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon. She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.
