Le Guin Ursula

Ursula Le Guin was an American writer, publicist, and literary critic, the author of novels, poetry, and children’s books.

She was born on October 21, 1929, in Berkeley, California, into the family of the renowned anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kroeber. Ursula and her three brothers, Clifton, Theodore, and Karl Kroeber, read a great deal; they were influenced by the wide circle of their parents’ friends, among whom were Native Americans and Robert Oppenheimer, who inspired the main character of her novel The Dispossessed. Le Guin said that she was grateful for the ease and happiness of her upbringing. Her environment fostered her interest in literature, and she wrote her first fantasy story at the age of 9, and her first science-fiction story at the age of 11 and sent it to Astounding Science Fiction for publication; however, the magazine returned it, refusing to print it.

During the academic year Ursula’s family lived in Berkeley, and for the summer they went to their estate, “Kishamish,” in Napa Valley. Le Guin said of the estate that it was “an old, dilapidated ranch ... a gathering place for scholars, writers, students, and California Indians. ... I heard many interesting, adult conversations.” She was interested in poetry and biology, but mathematics was difficult for her.

Ursula attended Berkeley High School. She studied at Radcliffe College of Harvard University and in the graduate school of Columbia University, specializing in medieval Romance literature. In 1951 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, Phi Beta Kappa, in French and Italian Renaissance literature, and in 1952 she received a Master of Arts in the same field. After that, she began work on her dissertation and received a Fulbright grant to study in France in 1953 and 1953.

During a trip to France aboard the Queen Mary, she met the historian Charles Le Guin from Georgia, an American of French descent, whom she married in Paris in 1953. After that, Ursula decided not to continue her doctoral work on the writings of the poet Jean Lemaire de Belges.

The couple returned to the United States so that Charles could work on his PhD dissertation at Emory University.