Support Us
Five Books
 
Search
MENUMENU
  • Nonfiction
        • Art
          • Architecture
          • Art History
          • Design & Illustration
          • Fashion & Style
          • Modern and Contemporary Art
          • Photography
        • Business Books
          • How to Invest
          • Leadership
          • Marketing
        • Economics
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • Globalization Books
          • World Economies
        • Environmental Books
          • Climate Change Books
          • Environmental Ethics
        • Food & Cooking
          • The Best Cookbooks
          • Food & History of Food
          • Wine & Drinks
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
          • Family & Relationships
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
        • History Books
          • American History
          • Ancient History (up to 500)
          • Modern History (1800-1945)
          • History of Science
          • Historical Figures
          • Military History
        • Language
          • English Grammar & Usage
          • Books for Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Law
        • Literary Nonfiction
          • Best Biographies
          • Essays
          • Memoir
          • Artists' Biographies
          • Travel
          • True Crime
        • Music & Drama
          • Classical Music & Opera
          • Film & Cinema
          • Music
          • Theatre
        • Nature
          • The Prehistoric World
          • The Earth
          • Plants, Trees & Flowers
        • Philosophy Books
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Politics & Society
          • War
          • Feminism
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • Human Rights
          • Terrorism
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Psychoanalysis
          • Psychology Research
          • Self Help
        • Religion
          • Best Atheist Books
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History Books
        • Science
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Chemistry
          • Geoscience
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Popular Science
          • Physics Books
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
          • Football (Soccer)
          • Gardening
          • Hobbies
          • Sport & Sporting Culture
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
          • Computing
          • Digital Age
          • History of Technology
          • Internet
  • Fiction & Literature
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classical Studies
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • NEW Fiction
        • Poetry
        • Memoir
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers (Books)
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Caribbean
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Kazakhstan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Spain
          • Ukraine
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
        • Russia & FSU
          • Azerbaijan
          • Georgia
          • Russia
  • Kids
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • High School Teachers Recommendations
        • Novelists Recommend
        • Ages Baby-2
        • Ages 3-5
        • Ages 6-8
        • Ages 9-12
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • Best Kids Books of 2022
        • Best Books for Teens of 2022
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • Popular Series Books for Kids
        • History
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Family
        • Science
        • Mental Health
  • Best Books 2022
        • Audiobooks
        • Best Books for Teens of 2022
        • Best Kids' Books of 2022
        • Best Fiction of 2022
          • Historical Fiction
          • Romance
          • Science Fiction
          • Fantasy
          • Mystery
        • Best Nonfiction of 2022
          • History
          • Politics
          • Memoir
  • New Books
        • New Science Books
        • New Climate Books
        • New Psychology Books
        • New Philosophy Books
        • New Math Books
        • New Economics Books
        • New History Books
        • New Physics Books
        • New Memoirs
        • New Biography
        • New Fiction
        • New World Literature
        • New Historical Fiction
  • Audiobooks
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Nobel Literature Prize
    • Booker Prize
    • Baillie Gifford Prize
    • Royal Society (science)
    • Wolfson Prize (history)
    • Walter Scott Prize
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize
    • Pushkin House Prize
    • Audie Awards
  • Experts

Fiction » Science Fiction

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Buy now Listen now

The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking work of science fiction–winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Recommendations from our site

“In one of the introductions that it has been published with, she specifically describes it as a thought experiment. It’s a simple idea: what if there was no gender? What if people were neutral in their gender, and only took on gender characteristics for sexual reproduction? If anybody could take on either masculine or feminine characteristics, and if throughout your lifetime you might be both, then what would it mean? We have a world thoroughly saturated with gender difference and patriarchal worldviews, and Le Guin makes us realize how true this is by the contrast.” Read more...

The Best Ursula Le Guin Books

Sherryl Vint, Literary Scholar

“The setting of The Left Hand of Darkness is a world where the inhabitants are humans, or very closely related to humans, with the exception that they don’t have a gender most of the time . . . This is a setting that makes us challenge and question some of the things that most of us consider pretty fundamental to our human identity.” Read more...

The Best Sci Fi Books for Beginners

Nicholas Whyte

“Ursula Le Guin may be the writer I most admire. The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969, may be her best novel….The Left Hand of Darkness is often discussed, and indeed taught, as a machine for thinking about gender, and it performs that function admirably. But there is much more to it than that. There is a rather dangerous gender-essentialism in the assumption that Le Guin, being female, must have subordinated her aesthetic project to feminist proselytising. Le Guin’s writing is always much more balanced than that. Indeed, that balance as such forms one of her major concerns.” Read more...

Science Fiction Classics

Adam Roberts, Novelist

“The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin doesn’t deal with technology but Le Guin uses fiction to perform a thought experiment. Hers is to say what the world would look like if gender was not an issue. She imagines a world where a state of gender fluidity means that people could transfer from male to female and back again…..She imagines a world where a state of gender fluidity means that people could transfer from male to female and back again.” Read more...

The best books on Alternative Futures

Catherine Mayer, Politician

No reading list covering gender in speculative fiction would be complete without reference to Ursula Le Guin’s classic work. The Left Hand of Darkness follows a diplomat from an interplanetary alliance on his first approach to an icy planet, whose most intelligent life forms are largely androgynous, but—when they come into heat—can become either sex. Neither dystopian nor truly utopian, Le Guin’s book is a fascinating and immersive study of an imaginary alien culture that throws a great deal of light upon our own. This Lithub essay by the novelist Becky Chambers offers some further insight into the significance of Le Guin’s gender-queer masterpiece.

From our article Books like The Handmaid’s Tale

The Left Hand of Darkness is probably Ursula le Guin‘s most famous book. Like Dune, it allows us to explore a complex alien culture through the eyes of a visitor; in this case, the diplomat Genly Ai who has arrived on the planet of Gethen as part of a mission to persuade its inhabitants to join the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets. Gethen, like Dune‘s Arrakis, has an extreme climate; at one stage, Ai treks with a Gethen native across an ice sheet for 80 days, almost losing his life in the process. And like Dune, we are introduced to an alien religion with prophetic elements. The Left Hand of Darkness is best known as a study of gender—the residents of Gethen take on characteristics of both sexes, but only at certain times, and this has profound impacts on its culture and social hierarchies. Fascinating and thought-provoking.

From our article Books like Dune

Other books by Ursula Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

The Dispossessed
by Ursula Le Guin

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin

The Word for World is Forest
by Ursula Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula Le Guin

Our most recommended books

  • The Left Hand of Darkness
    by Ursula Le Guin

  • The Dispossessed
    by Ursula Le Guin

  • World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
    by Max Brooks

  • Foundation Trilogy
    by Isaac Asimov

  • Klara and the Sun: A Novel
    by Kazuo Ishiguro

  • The Road
    by Cormac McCarthy

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount.

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service Mastodon Social

© Five Books 2023

Get our newsletter