But instead of a holy war between Good and Evil, Ms. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The Earthsea series was clearly influenced by J. There she met and married another Fulbright scholar, Charles Le Guin, who survives her. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951, earned a master’s degree in romance literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance from Columbia University in 1952, and won a Fulbright fellowship to study in Paris. But in early adolescence she lost interest in science fiction, because, she recalled, the stories “seemed to be all about hardware and soldiers: White men go forth and conquer the universe.” Le Guin immersed herself in books about mythology, among them James Frazer’s “The Golden Bough,” classic fantasies like Lord Dunsany’s “A Dreamer’s Tales,” and the science-fiction magazines of the day. Her father was an expert on the Native Americans of California, and her mother wrote an acclaimed book, “Ishi in Two Worlds” (1960), about the life and death of California’s “last wild Indian.”Īt a young age, Ms. 21, 1929, the youngest of four children and the only daughter of two anthropologists, Alfred L. She was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, Calif., on Oct. Le Guin as “a superbly imaginative creator and major stylist” who “has raised fantasy into high literature for our time.”

Several, including “The Left Hand of Darkness” - set on a planet where the customary gender distinctions do not apply - have been in print for almost 50 years. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. The conflicts they face are typically rooted in a clash of cultures and resolved more by conciliation and self-sacrifice than by swordplay or space battles. But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes. Le Guin embraced the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months.

Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, confirmed the death. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like “The Left Hand of Darkness” and the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Ore.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin