‘Genre cannot contain Ursula Le Guin: she is a genre in herself’ Zadie Smith

‘Groundbreaking’ Guardian

‘No single work did more to upend the genre’s conventions’ Paris Review

A lone human emissary journeys from Earth to the planet of Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose – and change – their gender.

His goal is to secure Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilisation, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and the culture he encounters.

Forced into a perilous partnership with an outcast on a journey across the planet’s bitter, whirling snow, he learns how survival, trust and love take shape in a world nothing like his own.

A visionary classic, The Left Hand of Darkness reshaped fiction with its radical exploration of gender, human connection and power.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM DAVID MITCHELL