Author: Aashutosha Lele

I was stuck in fantasy. Ursula Le Guin helped me look beyond. A few weeks ago, I heard that Ursula K. le Guin, the notable American science-fiction and fantasy author had passed away. My first reaction on hearing that was, “What? Was she still alive?” For some reason, I had always thought of her as one of those old-time authors, contemporaries of people like J.R.R. Tolkien. Something about the way she wrote didn’t seem characteristic of a ‘modern’ author - or what ‘modern’ meant by the definition I created in my juvenile simplicity. Image courtesy: http://aboulder.com I picked up my first Le Guin book, A Wizard of Earthsea, when I was in my fantasy-obsessed phase, having, as a compulsive re-reader, just made my way through Tolkien’s A Lord of the Rings for the millionth time. I was br...