[This entry was updated by Nancy Barendse (Charleston Southern University) from her update in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, volume 6, of the entry by Brian Attebery (College of Idaho) in DLB 8: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers and the entry by Andrew Gordon (University of Florida) in DLB 52: American Writers for Children Since 1960: Fiction.]
Ursula K. Le Guin is a writer of great versatility and power, acclaimed for her science fiction, fantasy, and children's literature. All her fiction is distinguished by careful craftsmanship, a limpid prose style, realistic detail in the creation of imaginary worlds, profound ethical concerns, and mythical reverberations created through the use of symbolic and archetypal patterns. Her typical story involves a hero's quest for maturity and psychological integration, and her major theme is the need for balance and wholeness. Her goal in writing is to show her readers themselves and their lives at a distance, the better to create orderly patterns out of random information.
