The groundbreaking work of science fiction and fantasy author Ursula k. Le Guin was presented with the medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at tonight’s National Book Awards Ceremony, a presentation of the National Book Foundation. The award recognizes a person who has enriched the nation’s literary heritage over a life of service, or a body of work.
The award was presented to Le Guin by author Neil Gaiman, who credited Le Guin as having been a longtime influence in his writing career. Gaiman recalled buying a copy of Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea as an eleven year-old boy, and said that after reading it he became enamored with the idea of joining a wizard school. He added that others had since borrowed the idea from Le Guin, but she had done it best.
While it’s certain that some may have interpreted his remark to be a joke at Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s expense, it is just as likely that he may have been indirectly referring to his own comic book series, The Books of Magic.
The author said that Le Guin raised his consciousness about gender and women’s issues, particularly through her book The Left Hand of Darkness. He said that encountering the idea that gender could be fluid - that it wasn’t what he thought it could be - was “mind-peeling.”
Gaiman said that Le Guin is a “giant of literature who is finally getting recognized.”
In her acceptance speech, Le Guin acknowledged that speculative literature hasn’t always had a place in mainstream literary circles, but opined that there would be a future in which we would need writers of science fiction and fantasy more than ever.
“My thanks from the heart to my family, agent editors, I know that my being here is their doing as much as mine. I rejoice in accepting it for, and sharing it with, all of the writers who were excluded from literature so long,” said Le Guin. “My fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction - writers of imagination - who for for the last fifty years watched the beautiful awards go to the so-called realists. I think hard times are coming when we will want writers who can see alternatives; to how we can see now see through the fear-stricken culture with its obsessive technology so to a different way of being, and see grounds for hope.”
Le Guin’s speech ended with a call to writers and publishers to recognize the difference between profit and art.
“The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, and its powers seme inescapable. So did the divine right of kings,” said Le Guin. “Any human power can be changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art; very often in our art: the art of words.”
Le Guin is one of three speculative literature authors who have received this award. The other two are Ray Bradbury (2000) and Stephen King (2003).