Grand Master Ursula K. Le Guin has been recognised for almost fifty years as one of the most important writers in the SF field - and is likewise feted beyond the confines of the genre. The Wind's Twelve Quarters was her first collection and it brings together some of finest short fiction, including the Hugo Award-winning The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, the Nebula Award-winning The Day Before the Revolution, and the Hugo-nominated Winter's King, which gave readers their first glimpse of the world later made famous in her Hugo- and Nebula-winning masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness. Contents: The Wind's Twelve Quarters • (1975) • collection by Ursula K. Le Guin The Compass Rose • (1982) • collection by Ursula K. Le Guin A Trip to the Head • (1970) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin April in Paris • (1962) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Darkness Box • (1963) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Direction of the Road • (1973) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Foreword (The Wind's Twelve Quarters) • (1975) • essay by Ursula K. Le Guin Nine Lives • (1969) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin Semley's Necklace • [Hainish] • (1964) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin (variant of The Dowry of Angyar) The Day Before the Revolution • [Hainish] • (1974) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Field of Vision • (1973) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Good Trip • (1970) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Masters • (1963) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas • (1973) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Rule of Names • [Earthsea Cycle] • (1964) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Stars Below • (1974) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Word of Unbinding • [Earthsea Cycle] • (1964) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Things • (1970) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Vaster Than Empires and More Slow • (1971) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin Winter's King • (1969) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin Gwilan's Harp • (1977) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Intracom • (1974) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Malheur County • (1979) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Mazes • (1975) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Preface (The Compass Rose) • (1982) • essay by Ursula K. Le Guin Schrödinger's Cat • (1974) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Small Change • (1981) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Some Approaches to the Problem of the Shortage of Time • (1979) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin SQ • (1978) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Sur • (1982) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Author of the Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics • (1974) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Diary of the Rose • [Orsinia] • (1976) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin The Eye Altering • (1976) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The First Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb • (1978) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The New Atlantis • (1975) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin The Pathways of Desire • (1979) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin The Phoenix • (1982) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Water Is Wide • (1976) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The White Donkey • (1980) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin The Wife's Story • (1982) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin Two Delays on the Northern Line • [Orsinia] • (1979) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin
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.
