Ursula K. Le Guin, acclaimed for fantasy fiction, dies at 88

Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminine sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books such as “The Left Hand of Darkness” and the Earthsea series, died Monday at her home in Portland, Ore., She was 88.

Her son, Theo DownesLe Guin, confirmed the death. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months.

Le Guin embraced the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes. The conflicts they face are typically rooted in a clash of cultures and resolved more by conciliation and selfsacrifice than by swordplay or space battles.

Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Several, including “The Left Hand of Darkness” — set on a planet where the customary gender distinctions do not apply — have been in print for almost 50 years. Critic Harold Bloom lauded Le Guin as “a superbly imaginative creator and major stylist” who “has raised fantasy into high literature for our time.”

In addition to her 21 novels, she was the author of more than 10 books of poetry, more than 100 short stories, seven collections of essays, 13 books for children and five volumes of translation, including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral.