A Wizard of Earthsea

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A Wizard of Earthsea, first published in 1968, is the first of a series of books written by Ursula K. Le Guin and set in her fantasy archipelago of Earthsea. The tale of the eponymous wizard – after this, his first great adventure – continues in The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore, but Le Guin has written a number of other novels and short stories set in the world of Earthsea.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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Synopsis

In the novel, a young man, Sparrowhawk, comes of age on his home island of Gont. While still a boy, he discovers that he has the inborn aptitude to practice magic. Some years later, he uses this ability to save his village from a raiding party of barbarians. In the aftermath of the battle, in a rite of passage that leads him into adulthood, he is given his true, secret name ("Ged") and is apprenticed to the wizard Ogion the Silent.

Sparrowhawk then travels to the school of wizardry on Roke Island, masters his craft easily, and, in his hubris, summons a spirit of darkness that scars him and leaves him for dead.

After a painful and slow recovery, Sparrowhawk is sent out into the world as a wizard. He has a series of adventures, including surviving a confrontation with a dragon. At last he resolves to track down the foe he has released and destroy or banish it.

Ultimately Sparrowhawk confronts the shadow that hunts him, and defeats it by realizing that it is his own shadow. He calls the shadow, which was thought to be nameless, by name – "Ged". In doing so, he reconciles both sides of himself and takes responsibility for his past mistakes which, until then, he had run from.

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Trivia

This book is a coming-of-age story, written with an eye for a young adult audience. It won the Boston Globe-Hornbook Award for juvenile fiction in 1968. It is, in effect, a fantasy Bildungsroman – the story of a young man's quest for wisdom and spiritual wholeness, written in a sparse prose style.
Le Guin has said that the book was in part a response to the image of wizards as ancient and wise, and to her wondering where they come from. The author is famous for her science fiction and fantasy works; over her career she has received about an award a year,[1] among them a total of ten of the most prestigious of them all, the Hugo and Nebula awards.

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