Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was born in 1929; her parents were theanthropologist Alfred Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kroeber. Shewrites both poetry and prose, including realistic fiction, sciencefiction, fantasy, young children's books, books for young adults,screenplays, essays, verbal texts for musicians, and voicetexts forperformance or recording. She has published five books of poetry,seventeen novels, over a hundred short stories (collected in eightvolumes), two collections of essays, eleven books for children, andtwo volumes of translation. Several of Le Guin's major titles haveremained continuously in print for over thirty years. Her bestknown fantasy works, the first four Books of Earthsea, have soldmillions of copies in America and England, and have been translatedinto sixteen languages. Three of Le Guin's books have beenfinalists for the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, andamong the many honors her writing has received are the NationalBook Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula awards, the Kafka award,a Pushcart Prize, the Howard Vursell award of the American Academyof Arts and Letters, and the L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Award.

Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea,but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a recklessyouth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tamperedwith long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadowupon the world. This is the tale of his testing,how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed anancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold torestore the balance.

From the Paperback edition.