In Orsinian Tales, Ursula K. Le Guin portrays an imagined European country, tracing the lives of ordinary people amid political upheaval.
Through subtle realism and quiet reflection, the stories explore loss, dignity, and the search for inner freedom.
Nestled among the lesser-known mountains and valleys of Central Europe, east of Austria and north of Slovenia, lies the ancient kingdom of Orsinia — a land of forests, vast farmlands, and small provincial towns, with its capital, Krasnoy, stretching along the banks of the River Molsen.
Like many European nations of the nineteenth century, Orsinia has long existed under the shadow of a great continental power beyond its borders. Yet in Orsinian Tales, Ursula K. Le Guin shows how the lives and dreams of its ordinary inhabitants matter just as much as the ambitions, conflicts, and struggles of Europe’s monarchs and dictators.
The stories in the collection span a long historical period, from Orsinia’s emergence as an independent kingdom in the twelfth century to its absorption into the Eastern Bloc after the Second World War.
The Orsinian cycle also includes the novel Malafrena.
