American · b. 1929
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote science fiction and fantasy that literary fiction readers could not ignore. "The Left Hand of Darkness" (1969) imagined a world without fixed gender; "The Dispossessed" (1974) won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for its anarchist utopia. Le Guin was the daughter of anthropologists, and her world-building has anthropological depth. She also wrote criticism and translation. She died in 2018.