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Read the Resistance, April 2018: The Left Hand of Darkness

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CHAT LIVE with Katie Kitamura and Maria Dahvana Headley! Tuesday, April 17, 2018, on Facebook Live

In this special PEN World Voices Festival edition of Read the Resistance, an online book club that highlights written works of and about resistance, we asked Katie Kitamura, author of, most recently, A Separation, to recommend a book that exemplifies resistance to her. Her pick? The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Join Kitamura in conversation with author Maria Dahvana Headley for a discussion about the book on April 17 as part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

“I chose Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness because, in the midst of this daily political chaos, I wanted to spend time in another world: one that was a refuge from this one, but not a retreat,” said Kitamura. “The Left Hand of Darkness is a reminder of how the act of imagination is itself an act of resistance. The power to imagine a new world is the power to open up the possibility of change, and nobody did this with greater ferocity or fidelity than Le Guin. “

This event is cosponsored by Books on the Subway.

About Katie Kitamura
Katie Kitamura is the author of Gone To The Forest and The Longshot, both finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. Her third novel, A Separation, was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori. It was named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications, and will be translated into 16 languages. She has written for publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, BOMB, and Triple Canopy.

 

About Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. She was the best-selling author of the Earthsea Cycle and the Hainish Cycle, including The Left Hand of Darkness. With the awarding of the 1975 Hugo and Nebula Awards to The Dispossessed, she became the first author to win both awards twice for novels. She passed away in 2018.

 

Photo by Beowulf Sheehan

About Maria Dahvana Headley
Maria Dahvana Headley is the New York Times best-selling author of six books in a variety of genres, most recently The Mere Wife, a novel-length contemporary reimagining of Beowulf, coming in July, to be followed in 2019 by a new verse translation of Beowulf, and a short story collection, all from MCD and FSG. She’s also the author of the young adult novels Magonia and Aerie (HarperCollins), and with Neil Gaiman, she edited Unnatural Creatures. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and included in many anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy. Her work has been supported by the MacDowell Colony. She was raised with a wolf and a pack of sled dogs in the high desert of rural Idaho and now lives in Brooklyn.

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