"Sur" | |
---|---|
Short story by Ursula K. Le Guin | |
Country | USA |
Genre(s) | Science fiction |
Publication | |
Published in | The New Yorker |
Publication type | Periodical |
Media type | |
Publication date | February 1, 1982 |
"Sur" is a short story by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in The New Yorker on February 1, 1982. [1] [2] It was included in The Compass Rose , a collection of stories by Le Guin first published in July 1982. [3]
The subtitle is "A Summary Report of the Yelcho Expedition to the Antarctic, 1909–1910"; the story describes an expedition to the South Pole by a group of women from South America.
The title "Sur" (Spanish "South") may be compared with South , the title of Ernest Shackleton's account of the Antarctic expedition of 1914–1917.
The narrator, a woman in Lima, Peru, does not write for publication; this account of her adventure will be kept in a trunk in the attic, to be found by future generations.
She was inspired as a child by reading about expeditions to Antarctica, particularly The Voyage of the Discovery, Captain Scott's book about his expedition of 1902–1904. She plans, with several friends, a similar expedition. They find a benefactor, and the nine women, from Peru, Chile, and Argentina, meet in Punta Arenas in Chile in August 1909.
They have hired the Yelcho , a steamer commanded by Captain Pardo. They sail to the Ross Sea, and at Hut Point they visit Captain Scott's hut; not liking the state it is in, they eventually decide to set up camp on the Great Ice Barrier, digging out cubicles in the ice. Grouped into two sledge teams and a support team, they journey south, covering about 15 miles (24 km) a day on level ice, and ascending the Florence Nightingale Glacier, as they have named it – shown on maps as the Beardmore Glacier. They reach the South Pole on 22 December 1909.
On returning to base camp, they realize that one of the group, Teresa, is pregnant. A baby girl is delivered, and Teresa names her Rosa – Rosa del Sur (Rose of the South). The Yelcho returns to their camp as promised, and the group returns home.
After the narrator learns of the Yelcho's role in rescuing Shackleton's men from Elephant Island, she writes to congratulate Captain Pardo, and thank him again. "Never one word has he breathed of our secret. He is a man of honor, Luis Pardo."
"Sur" won the Locus Award for Best Short Story in 1983, [4] and it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in that year. [1]
Francine Prose wrote that it was "my favorite story by Ursula K. Le Guin.... "Sur"... typifies what she does best: construct a lightly ironic, playful and more or less fantastic fiction of ideas, with an interest in ... the different methods by which men and women apprehend and respond to the world". [5]
Anne K. Kaler argues that the story provides a cleverly coded map for women striving to be professional writers; to illustrate the paths that women writers must take into the tundras ruled by male writers, she uses the devices of disorder, dislocation, and reversal in the journey/journal. [6]
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
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Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Tales from Earthsea is a collection of fantasy stories and essays by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Harcourt in 2001. It serves as an accompaniment to the five novels of the Earthsea cycle, all set in the fictional archipelago Earthsea.
Elephant Island is an ice-covered, mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean. The island is situated 245 kilometres north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 1,253 kilometres west-southwest of South Georgia, 935 kilometres south of the Falkland Islands, and 885 kilometres southeast of Cape Horn. It is within the Antarctic claims of Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom.
The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, named after a line from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, and first published by Harper & Row in 1975. A retrospective of Le Guin's short stories, it collects 17 previously published pieces of speculative fiction. Four of these were the germs of novels she was to write later, and a few others shared connections to Le Guin novels. At least four stories are set in the Hainish Universe, and two others in Earthsea. Many stories share themes and motifs, including time and utopia: certain images and characters also recur, including isolated scholars or explorers seeking knowledge in a hostile world.
The Compass Rose is a 1982 collection of short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, and illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert in 1983. It is organized into sections on the theme of directions, though not strictly compass-related as the title implies.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
John Robert Francis Wild was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.
Luis Alberto Pardo Villalón was a Chilean Navy officer who, in August 1916, commanded the steam tug Yelcho to rescue the 22 stranded crewmen of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance, part of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The crewmen were stranded on Elephant Island, an ice-covered mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean.
"The Day Before the Revolution" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. First published in the science fiction magazine Galaxy in August 1974, it was anthologized in Le Guin's 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters and in several subsequent collections. Set in Le Guin's fictional Hainish universe, the story has strong connections to her novel The Dispossessed, and is sometimes referred to as a prologue to the longer work, though it was written later.
Virginia Kidd was an American literary agent, writer and editor, who worked in particular in science fiction and related fields. She represented science fiction American authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, R.A. Lafferty, Anne McCaffrey, Judith Merril, and Gene Wolfe. Wolfe modeled Ann Schindler, a character in his 1990 novel Castleview, in large part on Kidd.
The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published in 1969, it became immensely popular, and established Le Guin's status as a major author of science fiction. The novel is set in the fictional Hainish universe as part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of novels and short stories by Le Guin, which she introduced in the 1964 short story "The Dowry of Angyar". It was fourth in sequence of writing among the Hainish novels, preceded by City of Illusions, and followed by The Word for World Is Forest.
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) was an American author of speculative fiction, realistic fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, librettos, essays, poetry, speeches, translations, literary critiques, chapbooks, and children's fiction. She was primarily known for her works of speculative fiction. These include works set in the fictional world of Earthsea, stories in the Hainish Cycle, and standalone novels and short stories. Though frequently referred to as an author of science fiction, critics have described her work as being difficult to classify.
The Yelcho was built in 1906 by the Scottish firm Geo. Brown and Co. of Greenock, on the River Clyde for towage and cargo service of the Chilean Sociedad Ganadera e Industrial Yelcho y Palena, Puerto Montt. In 1908 she was sold to the Chilean Navy and ordered to Punta Arenas as a tug and for periodic maintenance and supply of the lighthouses in that region.
"The Matter of Seggri" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It was first published in 1994 in the third issue of Crank!, a science fiction – fantasy anthology, and has since been printed in number of other publications. In 2002, it was published in Le Guin's collection of short stories The Birthday of the World: and Other Stories. "The Matter of Seggri" won the Otherwise Award in 1994 for exploring "gender-bending" and has been nominated for other honors including the Nebula Award.
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South is a book by Ernest Shackleton describing the second expedition to Antarctica led by him, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917. It was published in London by William Heinemann in 1919.
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