The star-spanning story of humanity's colonization of other planets,
Ursula K. Le Guin's visionary Hainish novels and stories redrew the map
of modern science fiction, making it a rich field for literary
explorations of "the nature of human nature," as Margaret Atwood has
described Le Guin's subject. Now, for the first time, the complete
Hainish novels and stories are collected in a definitive two-volume
Library of America edition, with new introductions by the author. This
second volume in a definitive two-volume edition gathers Le Guin's final
two Hainish novels, The Word for World Is Forest, in which Earth
enslaves another planet to strip its natural resources, and The
Telling, the harrowing story of a society which has suppressed its own
cultural heritage. Rounding out the volume are seven short stories and
the story suite Five Ways to Forgiveness, published here in full for
the first time. The endpapers feature a full-color chart of the known
worlds of Hainish descent.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in
length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.