A Wizard of Earthsea

Once in that court he had felt himself to be a word spoken by the sunlight. Now the darkness also had spoken: a word that could not be unsaid

On the island of Roke, Ged, a boy sorcerer learning the high arts of wizardry, falls victim to his own pride and vanity and accidentally releases a terrible shadow into the world. Binding itself to Ged, the shadow-beast destroys all hope of peace for the young mage until he can master it by gaining that greatest of powers: knowledge of the shadow’s true name.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s lyrical tale of magic, morality and identity is also a stirring adventure story. Ged battles the Dragon of Pendor, uses weatherworking to propel himself across the Inmost Sea, summons fog and werelights, and transforms himself into a hawk with a Spell of Change. It is a story that thrums with its own mythology, as beautiful and as real as any ancient tale. As Hari Kunzru writes in the Guardian, Le Guin’s writing ‘walks towards reality, not away from it’ – like all the great works of fantasy.

David Mitchell is a British novelist. He grew up in Malvern, Worcestershire, and studied at the University of Kent, where he earned a degree in English and American Literature and an MA in Comparative Literature. Named one of Granta’s ’Best of Young British Novelists’ in 2003, he has written numerous novels, two of which, number1dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.