Le Guin's Legacy

Ursula K. Le Guin died Monday at the age of 88. Le Guin wrote groundbreaking, mind-bending speculative fiction like The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness that cut to the heart of gender, politics, morality, and what it means to live and to die, all in exquisite prose. She believed that the most fertile ground for radical ideas was science fiction, and defended it against literary snobs.

According to her biographer, Julie Phillips, she had a glorious childhood, a painful and perilous adolescence and young adulthood, and then finally, a balanced life of family and artistic creation that enriched all who partook of it. Phillips and Brooke discuss the evolution of Le Guin’s work, her devotion to freedom, and her impact on the world of science fiction.