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.
- ISBN10 0152051244
- ISBN13 9780152051242
- Publish Date 1 April 2006 (first published 1 September 2004)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Cengage Learning, Inc
- Imprint Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 304
- Language English