The Telling
By Ursula K. Le Guin; (Editor)
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover, 9780151005673, 272pp.)
Publication Date: September 2000
Categories: Science Fiction - General
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The Left Hand of DarknessSutty, an Observer from Earth for the interstellar Ekumen, has been assigned to a new world-a world in the grips of a stern monolithic state, the Corporation. Embracing the sophisticated technology brought by other worlds and desiring to advance even faster into the future, the Akans recently outlawed the past, the old calligraphy, certain words, all ancient beliefs and ways; every citizen must now be a producer-consumer. Their state, not unlike the China of the Cultural Revolution, is one of secular terrorism. Traveling from city to small town, from loudspeakers to bleating cattle, Sutty discovers the remnants of a banned religion, a hidden culture. As she moves deeper into the countryside and the desolate mountains, she learns more about the Telling-the old faith of the Akans-and more about herself. With her intricate creation of an alien world, Ursula K. Le Guin compels us to reflect on our own recent history.
Ursula K. Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. Among her honors are a National Book Award, five Hugo and five Nebula Awards, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
"Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own.-The Boston Globe
"She can lift fiction to the level of poetry and compress it to the density of allegory-in The Telling, she does both, gorgeously."-Jonathan Lethem
"Everything that has been said about Le Guin-that she is a lush prose stylist, that she is a poet in every line, that her books make readers think and thinkers read-is here on display in her newest Hainish novel."-Jane Yolen two-time Nebula winner and author of The Books of Great Alta











