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Always Coming Home: A Novel Paperback – June 27, 2023
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“One of [Le Guin's] most radical novels. . . . Astudy in what a complete and utter rejection of capitalism and patriarchy might look like—for society and for the art of storytelling."—The Millions
Reissued for a new generation of readers, Always Coming Home is Ursula K. Le Guin’s magnificent work of imagination, a visionary, genre-crossing story about a future utopian community on the Northern California coast, hailed as “masterly” (Newsweek), “hypnotic” (People) and “[her] most consistently lyric and luminous book” (New York Times). This new edition features an introduction by Shruti Swamy, author of A House is a Body, as well as illuminating extra materialthat includes interviews and liner notes to the book's musical soundtrack.
Midway through her career, Le Guin embarked on one of her most detailed, impressive literary projects, a novel that took more than five years to complete. Blending story and fable, poetry, artwork, and song, Always Coming Home is this legendary writer’s fictional ethnography of the Kesh, a people of the far future living in a post-apocalyptic Napa Valley.
Having survived ecological catastrophe brought on by relentless industrialization, the Kesh are a peaceful people who reject governance and the constriction of genders, limit population growth to prevent overcrowding and preserve resources, and maintain a healthy community in which everyone works to contribute to its well-being. This richly imagined story unfolds through a series of narrated “translations” that illuminate individual lives, including a woman named Stone Telling, who travels beyond the Valley and comes to reside with another tribe, the patriarchal Condor people. With sharp poignancy, Le Guin explores the complexities of the Kesh’s unified society and presents to us—in exquisite detail—their lives, histories, adventures, customs, language, and art.
In addition to poems and folk tales, Le Guin created verse dramas, records of oral performances, recipes, and even an alphabet and glossary of the Kesh language. The novel is illustrated throughout with drawings by artist Margaret Chodos and includes a musical component—original recordings of Kesh songs that Le Guin collaborated on with composer Todd Barton—bringing this utterly original and compelling world to life.
- Print length640 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateJune 27, 2023
- Dimensions5.31 x 1.44 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100358726921
- ISBN-13978-0358726920
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A gift to the reader, a gentle and wise book that is her most personal, her most daring, probably her best yet." — St. Louis Post Dispatch
"Some stories are timeless, and can be located anywhere on earth, without the content being altered. Ursula Le Guin's enthralling new book is one of those." — Minneapolis Star and Tribune
"One of Le Guin’s most fascinating and underrated works: a sprawling exploration of a fictional people known as the Kesh, who lived in northern California hundreds of years in the future. . . . A novel, a scrapbook and an imaginary anthropological study in one . . . crammed with maps, stories, songs, recipes, poetry, charts and language guides." — The Guardian
"May be Le Guin's finest achievement."
— Newsday
"With high invention and deep intelligence, Always Coming Home presents, in alternating narratives, poems and expositions, Ursula K. Le Guin's most consistently lyric and luminous book in a career adorned with some of the most precise and passionate prose in the service of a major imaginative vision." — New York Times
"The effect it has on the reader is hypnotic. . . . Le Guin has chosen a most original way to reveal this imagined land." — People
"An appealing book as well as a masterly one. . . . The future world she has created here is awesomely complex." — Newsweek
"This may be her masterpiece, a collage of documents and artifacts tracing the history of a future agrarian society that has grown out of the ruins of the industrialized past."
— Alta: Journal of Alta California
"One of [Le Guin's] most radical novels. . . . Always Coming Home is a study in what a complete and utter rejection of capitalism and patriarchy might look like—for society and for the art of storytelling." — The Millions
"Always Coming Home is an act of discovery. . . . Everything Le Guin does is interesting, believable, and exquisitely detailed." — Los Angeles Herald Examiner
"Envisioning a possible future (and attacking present folly), Le Guin reinvents a "primitive" past. . . . Dancing their oneness with nature, valuing cooperation over competition, the Kesh survive contact with the hieratic, war-making, death-dealing Condors, who are a lot like us. If it's hard to believe in a people who use computers and electricity but plow with oxen and see wealth as giving, that's part of the point." — Library Journal
About the Author
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial (June 27, 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 640 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0358726921
- ISBN-13 : 978-0358726920
- Item Weight : 1.23 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 1.44 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #71,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #208 in Metaphysical & Visionary Fiction (Books)
- #1,438 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Books)
- #2,234 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (US /ˈɜːrsələ ˈkroʊbər ləˈɡwɪn/; born October 21, 1929) is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.
She influenced such Booker Prize winners and other writers as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell – and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin has resided in Portland, Oregon since 1959.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Top reviews from the United States
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I read this book when it was first published in paperback in the mid-80's. It planted and nurtured in me a seed of hope that humans are capable of someday living in community in different ways than we do now. It opened in my imagination doors that I had never before noticed. Here is an example of a new narrative structure, or anti-structure. Here, too, is an example of a new-old social structure, a post-modern tribalism that has returned to "traditional" values such as living in harmony with oneself and one's environment, and recognizing the strength and beauty in ritual and tradition.
Though others (including she) may disagree, I personally have always considered this work Mrs. LeGuin's crowning achievement. As Tolkien did in his Middle Earth stories, LeGuin in "Always Coming Home" creates a new-old world that is unfamiliar yet recognizable, someplace we want to go back to again and again. We are lucky indeed that this book is now back in print!
We all know about digging up the past; how about digging up the future! Not only does LeGuin tell stories about people living in a post holocaust future, she lays out all the artifacts and cultural items that archeologists and anthropologists might find.
Māori of New Zealand talk about looking forward into the past and the future, which we cannot know, being behind us. Le Guin begins her book with a similar statement.
I won't say that this book is an easy read because it isn't, but it is well worth the effort needed to understand the full story. It is also one of those satisfying books that one can read again and find new treasures.
Sometimes the text has 1 (one) instead of I (capital i). Sometimes a reference to another part of the book has a link, sometimes not. The Kesh alphabet didn't really work in night mode.
My only complaint is with this book itself, not with the writing: it has a comfortable weight and size, but the printing seems poor to me; there is a distracting stippling across the pages and text that make it look like a photocopy rather than a professionally printed book. The Library of America edition would probably be a better choice to purchase.
Top reviews from other countries
Reviewed in Brazil on May 11, 2024
far future studied like ancient past, a strongly feeling of meanings losts in translation and in the middle of this "reverse archeology" people came up and you love them for a moment before letting them go in the spiral of time...
A dream of salvation only if we humans would ever be willing of integrate in the universe and not taming it.
Ursula Le Guin taught us another way of life, another future (rather than the almost inevitable selfdestruction we humankind are unconsciusly heading) as she always did and never will do again...