This 2014 Speech by Ursula Le Guin Is Trending on Social Media
". . .Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.
"Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. . . .
"Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
"I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom."
Ursula K. Le Guin
November 19, 2014
Excerpted from Le Guin's speech in acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
This text may be quoted without obtaining permission from the author, or copied in full so long as the copyright information is included:
Copyright © 2014 Ursula K. Le Guin
I especially enjoyed LeGuin's "A Wizard Of Earthsea" series. Whose main protagonist was a Boy Wizard. I agree with this excerpt fromLeGuin's speech. Thanks for sharing it.