Recommendations

Books Like Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin

For readers of Le Guin's Hainish slavery novellas

If Four Ways to Forgiveness's examination of slavery, revolution, and the possibility of forgiveness, especially 'A Woman's Liberation,' moved you, these books explore the Hainish Cycle or literature about slavery and its aftermath.

  1. The Left Hand of Darkness cover
    1

    The Left Hand of Darkness

    by Ursula K. Le Guin

    Le Guin's Hugo-winning Hainish predecessor — the companion in the Hainish Cycle; Genly Ai on Gethen is the formal predecessor to the Hainish envoys who appear in Four Ways to Forgiveness.

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  2. The Dispossessed cover
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    The Dispossessed

    by Ursula K. Le Guin

    Le Guin's anarchist utopia — the companion in her explicitly political SF; the Anarres/Urras comparison is the economic/political version of the Werel/Yeowe comparison, both examining what liberation looks like and what it costs.

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  3. The Word for World is Forest cover
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    The Word for World is Forest

    by Ursula K. Le Guin

    Le Guin's anti-imperialist novella — the formal predecessor in her political novellas; the Athsheans' resistance is the predecessor to the bondspeople's resistance in Four Ways to Forgiveness.

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  4. Beloved cover
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    Beloved

    by Toni Morrison

    Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — the companion in literature about slavery and its aftermath; where Le Guin's approach is allegorical and SF, Morrison's is historical and Gothic, but both center the psychological cost of slavery on those who suffered it.

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  5. Kindred cover
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    Kindred

    by Octavia E. Butler

    Butler's most accessible novel — the companion in speculative fiction about slavery; Dana's time-travel to an antebellum plantation is the SF approach to the same subject that Le Guin addresses allegorically in the Werel/Yeowe setting.

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  6. A Memory Called Empire cover
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    A Memory Called Empire

    by Arkady Martine

    Martine's Hugo Award-winning debut — the most important recent companion in the Hainish envoy tradition; Mahit's navigation of the Teixcalaanli Empire is the 21st-century version of Le Guin's examination of a civilization from outside.

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  7. The Known World cover
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    The Known World

    by Edward P. Jones

    Jones's National Book Award winner — the companion in literary fiction about moral responsibility within a slave system; the complexity Le Guin examines allegorically in Werel is what Jones examines historically in the antebellum South.

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  8. Parable of the Sower cover
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    Parable of the Sower

    by Octavia E. Butler

    Butler's near-future dystopia — the companion in speculative fiction by a woman of color about building a life and a community on the other side of catastrophe; Earthseed's construction mirrors the post-slavery society-building of the Werel/Yeowe novellas.

    Buy on Amazon

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