AM: I think empty-handed Shevek is one of those
moments in literature few can forget. It says everything about the value
culture we live in today, where to arrive empty-handed is something to
be ashamed of. So many of your books and essays imagine a world where
real value is based on how we interact with one another with the loci of
those interactions situated in your societies’ norms of sex, gender,
race, and class. It seems to be one of the building blocks of your
writing. Are the two, writing and how humanity values itself,
inseparable to you?
UKL: This is the kind of question to which the only response is “Thank you.”
I’m no good at abstract thought about values and such; I think in and
through my writing — the inventions & the music. If the result is
good, that’s good. But all I can honestly take credit for is the work,
the workmanship. The rest comes through me, not from me. Or that’s how
it feels to me.
- "An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin," Alexandra Manglis
descensus Averno facilis est