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  • The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin by Ursula K. Le Guin book cover
  • The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin by Ursula K. Le Guin book cover
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The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin

by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps as creative worlds

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps as creative worlds

Gathering maps by Ursula K. Le Guin, many published here for the first time, this volume considers how drawn places relate to the worlds represented in fiction. Poems, stories, essays, and theoretical writing bring different perspectives to questions of mapmaking, architecture, place, and knowledge. The maps’ edges and their construction become points of inquiry, while the collection also considers maps as technologies of memory. Published in connection with an exhibition of Le Guin’s maps at London’s Architectural Association, the book bridges visual material and writing to examine mapping as part of creative practice and worldbuilding.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in Ursula K. Le Guin beyond her fiction
  • Readers exploring maps, architecture, and place in creative work
  • Readers seeking an interdisciplinary collection of visual material, poems, stories, essays, and theory

Themes

Maps and representationWorldbuilding and creative processArchitecture and placemakingKnowledge and memory

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

When Ursula K. Le Guin started writing a new novel, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World is the first publication focusing on maps by the celebrated author, publishing many for the first time together with writing from a variety of perspectives to enquire into the relationship between the world and its representation through creative dialogue with her fictions. Her maps offer starting points to reflect on the roles of architecture and placemaking in the creative process, worldbuilding, and paradigms of knowledge, exemplified by the map's edges and how a map is made. Through poems, stories, essays and theory, The Word for World reimagines her maps as carrying technologies of memory.

Co-published by Spiral House and AA Publications to coincide with an exhibition of Ursula K. Le Guin's maps at the Architectural Association, London, opening on 10 October 2025.
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