Ursula K. LeGuin work

March 21, 2022 1:52 PM

There's an Ursula K. LeGuin essay that I'd like to find again. When I read it, it was in a book with plain library binding, and now I don't remember what the title was. I do remember a fictional portion that struck me. Can you identify it?

She briefly told the life story of a woman who observed the natural world closely, experienced love, loss, became a mother, and died. It ended with "She was twenty years old."

I do believe this was an essay and not a short story, printed in an anthology of hers. Her larger point, IIRC, was about what it was like to experience a whole life in a different culture. I would have read it sometime before 2001 (if my place memory is correct), and not since. What do you think?

posted by Countess Elena to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Best answer: I think it's "The Second Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb," which is printed in Dancing at the Edge of the World, a collection of her essays. You can read it here.
posted by theodolite at 2:19 PM on March 21, 2022 [9 favorites]

Response by poster: You are right! Thank you so much!
posted by Countess Elena at 3:02 PM on March 21, 2022 [1 favorite]