The Ekumen is not a governing body, but rather a conduit for the exchange of information, goods, and mutual cultural understanding. Her writing often makes use of unusual alien cultures to convey a message about our own culture: one example is the exploration of sexual identity through the hermaphroditic race in The Left Hand of Darkness.Ī number of Le Guin's science fiction works, including her award-winning novels The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, are set in a future, post-Imperial galactic civilization loosely connected by a co-operative body known as the Ekumen. Much of Le Guin's science fiction places a strong emphasis on the social sciences, including sociology and anthropology. She became famous after the publication of her 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, which won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Searching for a publishable way to express her interests, she returned to her early interest in science fiction and began to be published regularly in the early 1960s.

Le Guin's earliest writings (little published at the time, but some appeared in adapted form much later in Orsinian Tales and Malafrena), were non-fantastic stories of imaginary countries. She has three children and four grandchildren. Le Guin has lived in Portland, Oregon since 1958. She later studied in France, where she met her husband, historian Charles Le Guin. At the age of eleven she submitted her first story to the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (it was rejected). She became interested in literature when she was very young. in Anthropology in the United States in 1901 (Columbia University). Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, the daughter of the anthropologist Alfred L.

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