The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by U.S. writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It is one of the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction. A major theme of the novel is the effect of sex and gender on culture and society. In 1970 it was voted the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.
About The Left Hand of Darkness in brief
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by U.S. writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It is one of the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction. A major theme of the novel is the effect of sex and gender on culture and society. In 1970 it was voted the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel by fans and writers. It was ranked as the third best novel, behind Frank Herbert’s Dune and Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, in a 1975 poll in Locus magazine. In 1987, Locus ranked it second among science fiction novels, after Dune, and literary critic Harold Bloom wrote, “Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time’” The novel explores the interaction between the unfolding loyalties of its two main characters, the loneliness and rootlessness of Ai, and the contrast between the religions of Gethen’s two major nations. The novel is set in the fictional Hainish universe as part of the series of novels and short stories by Le Gu in the HainISH Cycle, which she introduced in the 1964 short story “The Dowry of the Angyar’”. It was fourth in sequence of writing among the Hainsish novels, preceded by City of Illusions, and followed by The Word for World Is Forest. It has been reprinted more than 30 times, and received high praise from reviewers. The original edition did not contain an introduction, but in 1976 she wrote in the 1976 edition that the genre of science fiction was not as simple as simple extrapolation and simplistic as it had been in the 1960s and 1970s.
Her interest in Taoism influenced much of her science fiction work. She was also influenced by her early interest in mythology, and her exposure to cultural diversity as a child. Her protagonists are frequently interested in the cultures they are investigating, and are motivated to preserve them rather than conquer them. She identified with feminism, and was interested in non-violence and ecological awareness. She participated in demonstrations against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons. These sympathies can be seen in several of her works of fiction, including those in theHainISH universe. According to academic Douglas Barbour, the fiction of the H Bainish universe contain a theme of balance between light and darkness, a central theme of Taoism. In this case, her thought experiment explores a society without men or women, where the sexes share the biological and emotional makeup of both individuals and share the same world. The purpose of the thought experiment is not to predict the future, but to Describe the present world through the present reality, and to explore the consequences of this thought experiment, in this case through the world in which the sexes are not in control of their own lives. She used the term Ekumen for her fictional alliance of worlds, a term coined by her father, who derived it from the Greek oikoumene to refer to Eurasian cultures.
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This page is based on the article The Left Hand of Darkness published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
