URSULA K. LE GUIN & HER COHORT
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), daughter of a writer and an anthropologist, was born in Berkeley, California. After an education in the East (Radcliffe ‘51, Columbia M.A. in French ‘52, post-graduate work), travel and study in France, marriage to Charles Le Guin in 1953, she and her husband moved to Portland, Oregon in 1959. There they remained and raised a family, and there Ursula would die in January 2018. Over a five-decade writing career, however, Ursula would travel the universe, travel time, and travel into worlds of her creation that would shape worlds in other writers’ and readers’ hearts and minds for generations. She wrote short stories, poetry, novels, essays, and writing guides. She translated the Tao and other works. She wrote introductions to classics being revived, to works of foreign writers who she wanted known in the English-language market. She gave commencement addresses and award acceptances that made international news. She wrote letters of commendation, endorsement, protest, activism. She thrived as an anarchist, a lover of cats, a mentor to writers.
Ursula wrote with a graceful clarity. She was observant in a glancing and peripheral way, reporting to the reader not only what happened but more importantly why it happened and what it meant and what reverberations may ensue, all of this simultaneously. Her writing is not dense, but it is so fluid, so mercury-like, so Taoist in its course over and through barriers, that second and third (and lifetime) re-readings are productive. She is simply one of the best writers of her century, and the list of other writers influenced by her is too long to elaborate, but you may begin with J.K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood and Michael Chabon and Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell and Iain Banks.
Be prepared to be surprised. Be prepared to be re-taught how to understand the world. Le Guin was a remarkable artist, and her legacy is to entertain, to provoke, to bless, to confound, and to inspire those fortunate enough to read her.
Akata Witch
Akata Witch
“Nnedi Okorafor writes glorious futures and fabulous fantasies. Her characters take your heart and squeeze it; her worlds open your mind to new things.” — Neil Gaiman, author of The Graveyard Book and American Gods
Affectionately dubbed “the Nigerian Harry Potter,” Akata Witch weaves together a heart-pounding tale of magic, mystery, and finding one’s place in the world. Perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone!
Sunny Nwazue lives in Nigeria, but she was born in New York City. Her features are West African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a “free agent” with latent magical power. And she has a lot of catching up to do.
Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But as she’s finding her footing, Sunny and her friends are asked by the magical authorities to help track down a career criminal who knows magic, too. Will their training be enough to help them combat a threat whose powers greatly outnumber theirs?
World Fantasy Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor blends magic and adventure to create a lush world. Her writing has been called “stunning” by The New York Times and her fans include Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, John Green, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many more!