One of the most prolific science-fiction writers of the last century, Ursula K. Le Guin was revered for her inventive, genre-defying novels. Exploring humanity through philosophy, gender, race and society, her stories were rooted in fantasy worlds for which she often created original maps. Now a new exhibition in London is celebrating the cartographic imagination of this groundbreaking American author.
The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin reveals how maps were central to the other-world building she was so famous for. Fans will find much to enjoy here, including the opportunity to walk around enlarged screenprints of well-known maps from books such as Earthsea and Always Coming Home. They will also have the chance to pore over unpublished maps and artworks from the Le Guin Foundation archive.
Thanks to the accompanying book of the same name, readers will be be able to absorb a deeper sense of maps as world-making and storytelling devices, as scholars and commentators discuss their significance in Le Guin’s oeuvre.
