Ursula K. LeGuin’s Orsinia

Over at the TLS, the always insightful Roz Kaveney looks at The Library of America’s new edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Orsinia, which collectes the stories in Orsinian Tales and the novel Malafrena – all set in Le Guin’s imaginary central European country of Orsinia.

Malafrena, though, deserves to be ranked alongside The Dispossessed (1974) as one of Le Guin’s most serious works, and has not been discussed nearly enough as an intelligent political fiction – it is possible that it will find its readership now, in an era of hopes frustrated and betrayed. Malafrena is about as far as one can get from a Ruritanian romance – it is a book about the generation that came to maturity in the late 1820s, fought for liberation and lost.

You can read the rest of the article at the TLS website, and we recommend that you do.

Meanwhile, we’re delighted to tell you all that Ursula Le Guin’s Orsinia will be published by Gollancz in June, accompanied by eBooks of its component titles, Orsinian Tales and Malafrena.

You can find more of Ursula K. Le Guin’s work via her Author page on the Gateway website and read about her in her entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.