NEW YORK (AP) – Ursula K. Le Guin, the science fiction and fantasy writer widely celebrated as a visionary and compelling storyteller, is receiving an honorary National Book Award.
The National Book Foundation, which presents the awards, announced Tuesday that Le Guin was receiving the 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Previous winners include Toni Morrison, Norman Mailer and Elmore Leonard. Le Guin, 84, is known for such novels as “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Farthest Shore,” which in 1973 won the National Book Award for young people’s literature.
“Ursula Le Guin has had an extraordinary impact on several generations of readers and, particularly, writers in the United States and around the world,” Harold Augenbraum, the foundation’s executive director, said in a statement. “She has shown how great writing will obliterate the antiquated – and never really valid – line between popular and literary art. Her influence will be felt for decades to come.”
Neil Gaiman, who has long cited Le Guin as among his favorite writers, will present her the medal at the Nov. 19 ceremony in New York.
That Le Guin is accepting the award is itself a story. She has criticized the “commercial machinery of best-sellerdom and prizedom” and mocked the idea of being “Nobel Prize Winner Soandso” or “Jane D. Wonthepulitzer.” But in a recent email to The Associated Press, she said that she was grateful for being Ursula K. Le Guin, honorary National Book Award winner.