A Non-Euclidean View of California as A Cold Place to Be

Ursula K. Le Guin blends Taoist philosophy, myth and literary critique to challenge linear, progress-driven thinking and reimagine utopia as something grounded in the present.

In this refusal of futurity, Ursula K. Le Guin offers a counter-imaginary of place. She takes a non-linear journey through the stories we tell about progress and history, showing a way out of forward-oriented colonial modernity and its doctrine of technological utopias. Drawing upon Taoist philosophy and Indigenous storytelling, she advocates for anti-heroic alternatives to myths of endless growth.

Through Le Guin's characteristically playful prose, A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be shows that how we write is inseparable from how we imagine worlds, revealing the possibilities of living differently here and now