Ursula K. LeGuin received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation yesterday. Presented to her by Neil Gaiman ;-)
She's one of my favorite authors, and to read that she received the recognition she has deserved for a long while was heartening to this reader.
...I rejoice at accepting it for, and sharing it with, all the writers who were excluded from literature for so long, my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction—writers of the imagination, who for the last 50 years watched the beautiful rewards go to the so-called realists.
Oh yeah.
This diary hasn't got a lot of original content, as I'm not much of a writer, but I really believe this news and the content of her speech need to be shared here. I think many folks here will agree with me that she speaks truth.
The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.
If the forces of capitalism are not checked (once again) by the harness of wise regulation, chances are the version as practiced in the US will go the way of the divine right of kings.
Another "score" for short-term thinking.
Publius2008 suggested quoting a larger block of text, I was wary of doing that, but if Meteor Blades thinks it's "legal" then I'll take that as a go:
I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. … The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.
Read these links and think:
Transcript of her speech
“We Will Need Writers Who Can Remember Freedom”: Ursula Le Guin and Last Night’s N.B.A.s
Ursula Le Guin cries freedom as she is honoured for contribution to literature
Ursula Le Guin: ‘Wizardry is artistry’
[I will not be here a lot as it's my birthday and I'm trying my best to get stuff done so I can celebrate later. That's why I'm here, heh heh heh...]