Forms part of the Marian Wood Kolisch Oral History Collection.
Collection is open for research.
Gift of Marian W. Kolisch, April 1988 (Lib. Acc. 18764).
Ursula K. Le Guin, nee Kroeber, was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. In 1951, she earned a bachelor's degree in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College, which is now part of Harvard. In 1952, she earned a master's degree in French from Columbia University. She began working toward a Ph.D. in French, but discontinued her studies after her marriage to Charles Le Guin in 1953; they later had three children. The family moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1959. Between 1959 and 2018, she published over twenty novels and 100 short stories. She also published several poems and children's books. She won the Hugo and Nebula awards, each more than once. Some of her best-known works include the Earthsea novels and "The Left Hand of Darkness." Le Guin died in 2018.
Forms part of the Marian Wood Kolisch Oral History Collection.
Oral history interview with Ursula K. Le Guin, by Marian W. Kolisch, SR 11269, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Ursula K. Le Guin was conducted by Marian W. Kolisch at Le Guin's home in Portland, Oregon, on June 15, 1987. The interview was part of a series Kolisch conducted to accompany portraits of Oregon artists, businesspeople, and politicians. A transcript of the interview is available.
In this interview, Le Guin discusses her family background and early life in Berkeley, California; talks about her experiences at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and discusses her marriage to Charles Le Guin. She speaks at length about her career as a writer. She talks about the genres she writes in, including science fiction, fantasy, and romance. She shares her understanding of Taoism and talks about how she uses the philosophy in her writing. She closes the interview by talking about teaching writing workshops.
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and the estate of Ursula K. Le Guin. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted,