RIP Ursula Le Guin

I was sad to hear of the death, on Jan. 22, at the age of 88, of Ursula Le Guin. She was a critically acclaimed, prolific, and popular novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages. She is best known for her science fiction and fantasy works, such as “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Earthsea Trilogy.” For us in the San Francisco Bay Area, she was a “local” writer, a Berkeley native, although she lived in New York and other places, and eventually settled with her husband and children in Portland, Oregon. As readers of this blog may remember, I personally don’t usually enjoy science fiction and fantasy, but because Le Guin’s work in those genres was so literary and, especially, because she was a real feminist and her feminist sensibility pervaded her fiction, I did read and admire some of her work. Le Guin was a great believer in the power of art, especially literature, as a moral force. She will be missed.