Author Ursula Le Guin rails against profiteers 'who sell us like deodorant and tell us what to write'

Ursula Le Guin lets it fly at the National Book Awards ceremony this week.

Ursula Le Guin attracted a lot of attention this week when she accepted the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards Wednesday evening. Rarely have I heard anyone make that much impact in a six-minute speech. Speaking with the freedom that comes with age, Le Guin did not mince words as she gave us her take on a situation in which the news that tends to dominate book publishing is the battle for control between Amazon and many major publishers over book prices.

Le Guin is a well-known and respected author, primarily of science fiction. Born in 1929, she published her first novel in 1966, and has since published 22 more novels, in addition to short-story collections, poetry, and books for children, criticism, anthologies and translations. The incredibly prolific author was born in Berkeley, Calif., earned a master's degree in French and Italian Renaissance literature at the age of 22, married a historian, and currently lives in Portland, Ore. Her influence on science fiction has been huge. According to The Paris Review: "No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)."

Author Neil Gaiman, who introduced Le Guin and presented her with the award, told of how discovering her books at a young age opened his mind to the possibilities of what books could do, and started him on his quest to be a writer. Le Guin came up on the stage to accept her award with a smile, shrugged when Gaiman placed the medal around her neck, approached the podium, straightened her hair where Gaiman had messed it and lowered the microphone quite a bit — joking about her short stature. She thanked all the appropriate people for the honor of the award. And then she jumped in.

Science fiction is about alternate realities. It tends not to be mainstream, and therefore tends not to win the prestigious awards often garnered by more realistic writing. Le Guin was thankful to be recognized, and she emphasized the importance of alternative points of view. "We will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives, see other ways of being," she said. These writers, she continued, can "imagine grounds for hope." They are "the realists of a larger reality."

The current reality of the book business, Le Guin went on to say, is a situation where books are treated as a market commodity. While she understands that writers wish to, and deserve to, earn a living, she decries "commodity profiteers who sell us like deodorant and tell us what to write." Le Guin continued: "The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. Capitalism's aims seem inescapable. But so did the divine right of kings."

At this point, the very large hall at Cipriani's Wall Street was hushed, and we, her listeners, were hanging on her words. What makes a difference, she told us next, is art, and art is what writers make. "Change often begins in art — often in our art — the art of words."

Le Guin ended with a powerful exhortation: "We don't want to let American literature get sold down the river." Those who make a living by their writing, she said, rightly desire profit, but not at the price of commercialism. "The name of our beautiful reward is not profit — it's freedom."

From the standing ovation that ensued, to the posts and tweets and articles about her words that have happened since, it's clear Le Guin touched a chord and has, once again, used her words to make a tremendous impact.