'A safe, sterile lab to try ideas'

 

 

“I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever.”– Ursula K. Le Guin

 

Born in California on this date in 1929, Le Guin has been called "A major voice in  American letters," but she said if asked to label herself, she would just say "American Novelist."  Among her most notable works are the Earthsea fantasy series, The Dispossessed, and The Left Hand of Darkness.

Le Guin authored 20 novels, more than 100 short stories and many children's books in a wide variety of  genres over a 60-year career.  She's been cited as a key influence on writers like Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, and Neil Gaiman.  Winner of Hugo, Nebula, Locus and World Fantasy Awards – each more than once – she was  honored with the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014.  She died in 2018.

 

“The task of science fiction is not to predict the future.  Rather, it contemplates possible futures,” Le Guin said.  “Writers may find the future appealing precisely because it can't be known, a black box where ‘anything at all can be said to happen without fear of contradiction from a native. The future is a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas in, a means of thinking about reality, a method.’”