Ursula K Le Guin, rising above genre and so much else

It is entirely appropriate that her Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters places her among the greats

The National Book Foundation in America can lay claim to a staggeringly impressive list of past recipients of its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Ray Bradbury, John Updike. Stephen King, too, to a great deal of grumpiness from Harold Bloom back in 2003. On Wednesday, though, it announced 2014s winner and I think she may, possibly, be my favourite yet: the wonderful, the inimitable, Ursula K Le Guin.

For more than 40 years, Le Guin has defied conventions of narrative, language, character, and genre, as well as transcended the boundaries between fantasy and realism, to forge new paths for literary fiction, said the organisation, announcing its choice. Among the nations most revered writers of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guins fully imagined worlds challenge readers to consider profound philosophical and existential questions about gender, race, the environment, and society. Her boldly experimental and critically acclaimed novels, short stories, and childrens books, written in elegant prose, are popular with millions of readers around the world.

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