The Left Hand of Darkness

A popular paperback cover

An early hardback cover

The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Its treatment of the gender-changing Gethenians was one of the first serious science fictional explorations of how gender roles are or are not associated with physical sex and how both can be different from accepted norms.

On Gethen (aka "Winter"), the human race was biologically altered to be unisexual. Reproduction is accomplished by the people going through a stage called kemmer in which either the male or female sexual hormones are activated in response to the person's companion.

Gender

The novel has been criticized for using the masculine pronoun, and showing only "male" activities: politics, hunting, trekking. In a later edition Le Guin included a preface with alternate versions of the first section, one featuring the female pronoun as default and the other featuring a neutral pronoun.

In 1969 critics hailed "The Left Hand of Darkness" for its feminist themes and mythic storytelling. In the book, Le Guin conducts "a thought experiment" on the effects of gender (or lack of it) on society by exploring the implications of an androgynous race. In those early days of the feminist movement, she was forcing people to examine the roles of men and women in society. Le Guin wasn't sure she could sell the book or the idea. She thought men might feel figuratively castrated by the androgynous characters. Yet it became the best known and most honored of her works, winning a Nebula, a Hugo and a James Tiptree Jr. Retrospective Award.

Le Guin admits that in her earlier works she "wrote like an honorary man." She was initially cautious in her feminism. Even in "The Left Hand of Darkness," she still used "he" for the androgynous characters and rarely showed them in feminine roles. She told me that she regrets having allowed her characters only heterosexual relationships. But she feels she wrote the best book she could given the times. Le Guin credits reading "The Norton Book of Literature by Women" and her literary inspiration, Virginia Woolf, for allowing her to write like a woman and to feel liberated in doing so.

Story

Genly Ai, envoy to Gethen...

Awards

The book won the Nebula and Hugo Awards as well as a Retrospective Tiptree Award.

Translations and editions

• 1969
• German/deutsch Winterplanet
• German/deutsch Die linke Hand der Dunkelheit

Adaptations

• The Left Hand of Darkness (theatrical adaptation)
• Planned film adaptation by Phobos Entertainment [1]
• Planned video game adaptation (details?)

Further reading

• FeministSF Book Discussion Group (May 2004)