This debut novel from preeminent science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin introduces her brilliant Hainish series, set in a galaxy seeded by the planet Hain with a variety of humanoid species, including that of Earth. Over the centuries, the Hainish colonies have evolved into physically and culturally unique peoples, joined by a League of All Worlds.

Earth-scientist Rocannon has been leading an ethnological survey on a remote world populated

Winner of the Locus Award • Winner of the Endeavor Award

"[Le Guin] can lift fiction to the level of poetry and compress it to the density of allegory—in The Telling, she does both, gorgeously." —Jonathan Lethem

Sutty, an Observer from Earth for the interstellar Ekumen, has been assigned to a new world—a world in the grips of a stern monolithic state, the Corporation.

The Earth colony of Landinhas been stranded on the planet Werel for ten orbits, each of which is sixty Earth years long. As Werel once again enters its fifteen-year-long winter, the lonely and dwindling human settlement is joined by the nomadic hilfs, an indigenous humanoid people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell. The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they call farborns, regarding them as witches and avoiding interaction with them. Although