Canongate has acquired Words Are My Matter, a selection of the inimitable Ursula K. Le Guin’s essays, speeches and reviews that all centre on the importance of literature. UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) were acquired from Cooke McDermid on behalf of Small Beer Press and Canongate will publish in paperback and ebook in November 2025. Words Are My Matter will join the Canons list alongside Chinua Achebe’s Home and Exile, John Berger’s The Underground Sea and Anne Carson’s Lost Woods. The Canons are books without boundaries. Some are classics already, the rest will be soon.
Words Are My Matter articulates with precision and passion Le Guin’s belief in the social and political value of storytelling – especially in hard times. In doing so, and with her characteristic spirit, Le Guin offers both a glimmer of hope and a set of operating instructions for a life lived with meaning.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen 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.
ursulakleguin.com
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