The Left Hand of Darkness
On sale
20th September 2018
Price: £10.99
Nebula Award, 1970
A literary masterpiece from one of the great writers of our time: ‘Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart’ David Mitchell
‘Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new’
Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.
As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
‘Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new’
Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.
As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
Reviews
Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart
The exquisite prose . . . sings with every step. It is one thing to write a good story, or a great story. It is a whole other accomplishment, for an author of fiction, to write a true story
One of the most extraordinary examples of soft-core sf . . . reflects the author's formidable background in anthropology as well as her overriding ethical and artistic concerns
Le Guin's novel imagines how bridges can be built, chasms crossed. By the end, the book has changed us. Thus, the author not only demonstrates how to build worlds. She shows why we build worlds in the first place.
One of the best science fiction novels ever written
As profuse and original in invention as The Lord of the Rings
Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart
A jewel of a story
No single story did more to upend the genre's conventions
A rich and complex story of friendship and love
Genre cannot contain Ursula Le Guin: she is a genre in herself
