Scattered among poor, desolate farms, the clans of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability—with a glance, a gesture, a word—to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in constant fear that one family might unleash its gift against another. Two young people, friends since childhood, decide not to use their gifts. One, a girl, refuses to bring animals to their death in the hunt. The other, a boy, wears a blindfold lest his eyes and his anger kill. In this beautifully crafted story, Ursula K. Le Guin writes of the proud cruelty of power, of how hard it is to grow up, and of how much harder still it is to find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light.
| ISBN: | 9780152051242 |
| Publication date: | 1st April 2006 |
| Author: | Ursula K Le Guin |
| Publisher: | Clarion Books an imprint of HMH Books |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 304 pages |
| Series: | Annals of the Western Shore |
| Genres: |