Though known to the world as a science fiction writer at the end of her life (she died at the age of 88 in January 2018), Ursula Le Guin made it clear that she wanted to be known as a "Fiction writer" i.e. without the marginalizing adjective. In her works, she creates alternative realities. These realities are fictional, but possible. In the world monopolized by the TINA (There Is No Alternative) mindset, she became a visionary for an alternative that we desperately need; more equality, more justice, more freedom. In a recent interview with noted Polish journalist Paulina Wilk (Przekroj, January 24, 2018) Le Guin explained that we need new words to describe these new realities.
After the collapse of the Eastern bloc ideology in 1989 and of market fundamentalism in 2008, the present times hunger for a new vision that does not exploit the gap between the poor east and the rich west or the poor south and the rich north. Le Guin saw her chosen form as a way to advocate for social values including freedom, gender equality, and progressive social change, in the tradition of her revolutionary great great grandmother, Paulina Radziejowska-Kraków, who was one of the first Polish feminists, an editor of the paper for women "Pierwiosnek" and an author of a revolutionary book "A new prayer book for Polish women" ("Nowej książki do nabożeństwa dla Polek") published in 1842.
After the collapse of the Eastern bloc ideology in 1989 and of market fundamentalism in 2008, the present times hunger for a new vision that does not exploit the gap between the poor east and the rich west or the poor south and the rich north. Le Guin saw her chosen form as a way to advocate for social values including freedom, gender equality, and progressive social change, in the tradition of her revolutionary great great grandmother, Paulina Radziejowska-Kraków, who was one of the first Polish feminists, an editor of the paper for women "Pierwiosnek" and an author of a revolutionary book "A new prayer book for Polish women" ("Nowej książki do nabożeństwa dla Polek") published in 1842.
For me, Le Guin prepares us for revolutionary social changes, as many great novelists and poets did in the past. Her fiction is an important lens on potential futures.
