Encore Podcast: Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin, who broke the artificial wall between science fiction and literature, died on January 22nd, 2018 at the age of 88. An essayist and poet along with being a fiction writer, she transcended all genres with the quality of her prose and the allegorical nature of her work.

Best known for her novels The Left Hand of Darkness, which dealt with gender; The Dispossessed, which dealt with a utopian civilization; her series of novels in the fantasy realm of Earthsea; and her short stories, especially “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula K. Le Guin broke ground in several directions over the course of her writing life.

But she started in science fiction fantasy. On September 29th, 2000, Richard Wolinsky and his then co-host Richard A. Lupoff spoke with Ursula K. Le Guin about her career as a writer and about her latest novel, a political and social science fiction allegory, “The Telling.”

This podcast is taken from that interview, with segments from a short 1983 interview conducted by Richard A. Lupoff. The official interview ends at around the 36 minute mark, and the final fifteen minutes consist of a free-form discussion about Ursula LeGuin’s history in the science fiction field and her thoughts on several writers, including Philip K. Dick and James Tiptree Jr.

 

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