Young adult fiction note week 15: Ursula K. Le Guin’s utopian parable

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction.



A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters.^[1] A parable is a type of analogy.



A utopia is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities. Utopian ideals often place emphasis on egalitarian principles of equality in economics,government and justice, though by no means exclusively, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying based on ideology.




"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"  is a 1973 plotless, short, descriptive work of philosophical fiction, popularly classified as a short story, by Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in theutopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.



One of the three best fantasy fictions:

Earthsea is a series by Ursula K. Le Guin, starting with her short story "The Word of Unbinding," published in 1964. Earthsea became the setting for six books, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea, first published in 1968, and continuing with The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. All are set in the world of Earthsea, as are eight short stories by Le Guin.