URSULA K. LE GUIN (1929-2018) was the celebrated and beloved author of numerous groundbreaking works, such as The Left Hand of Darkness, A Wizard of Earthsea, and The Dispossessed. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebulas, nine Hugos, and SFWA's Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.

AMAL EL-MOHTAR is an award-winning writer of fiction, poetry, and criticism. She is the science fiction and fantasy columnist for the New York Times Book Review and the co-author, with Max Gladstone, of This Is How You Lose the Time War, a novella which has received several honours including the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, and Locus Awards. She lives in Ottawa.

Praise for Ursula K. Le Guin:

"One of the greats.... A literary icon." --Stephen King

"Le Guin is one of the writers who taught me that beauty and fearlessness go hand in hand." --N.K. Jemisin

"Genre cannot contain Ursula Le Guin: she is a genre in herself."--Zadie Smith

"Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own." --The Boston Globe

"Queen of the realm of fantasy."--Washington Post

"Eloquent, elegant... insightful, funny, sharp... and nearly always provocative." -- The Washington Post

"Her worlds are haunting psychological visions molded with firm artistry." -- The Library Journal

"Her characters are complex and haunting, and her writing is remarkable for its sinewy grace." -- Time

"Ursula Le Guin can lift fiction to the level of poetry and compress it to the density of allegory." --Jonathan Lethem

"If you want excess and risk and intelligence, try Le Guin." -- The San Francisco Chronicle

"She wields her pen with a moral and psychological sophistication rarely seen... and while science fiction techniques often buttress her stories they rarely take them over. What she really does is write fables: splendidly intricate and hugely imaginative tales about such mundane concerns as life, death, love, and sex." -- Newsweek

"Idiosyncratic and convincing, Le Guin's characters have a long afterlife." -- Publishers Weekly