the ones who walk away from omelas by ursula k le guin

Her works are complex philosophical and beautifully imagined explorations of, among other things, society and gender and identity. She was a tremendous writer, unafraid to be subversive and confident that she was writing important fiction even if many in the literary community checked her off as “merely” a fantasy or science fiction author.

Le Guin died last month at the age of 88. Le Guin’s very short, thought-provoking, and perhaps too easily simplified and reduced to a moral (albeit an important one) “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and William Trevor’s “The Piano Tuner’s Wives,” two of my absolute favorites, are up against each other in the first round! Who put this thing together? Due to forces I couldn’t control, another favorite is also in that bracket, meaning that at best only one of my favorites can make it to the final four. I have already written about a few of the contenders that are personal favorites. (1993), “The Other is My Hell The Other is My Home”, Human Studies, 16 (1–2): 193–202.Mookse Madness: Short Stories begins next week! You can see the brackets and the schedule here. “Lacan and the Discourse of the Other.” Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis. “Myth, Exchange and History in ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ (Mythe, Échange et Histoire Dans La Main Gauche de La Nuit).” Science Fiction Studies, 6/ 2, 180–89. “Hegel as Lacan’s Source for Necessity in Psychoanalytic Theory”. The Routledge Guidebook to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities 4/3, 472-483. (2016) “The King Was Pregnant”: Subversion of Gender in Ursula K. (2004) “Understanding Home: A Critical Review of The Literature” The Sociological Review, 62-89.

(2005) “Race Matters: People of Color, Ideology, and the Politics of Erasure and Reversal in Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ and Mary Doria Russell’s ‘The Sparrow.’” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 16/ 2 (62), 110–27. Pinkard), New York: Cambridge University Press. Aliens, Androgynes, and Anthropology: Le Guin’s Critique of Representation in “The Left Hand of Darkness.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 30(3), 59–73. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 8(2), 96–115. The Meaning of Home: Literature Review and Directions for Future Research and Theoretical Development. “The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgyny, Future, Present, and Past” Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 21, 227–35. (1991) “Narrative Voice and Unimaginability of the Utopian ‘Feminine’ in Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.’” Utopian Studies, 2/2.

The ones who walk away from omelas by ursula k le guin