When Ursula K. Le Guin started writing a new novel, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World is the first book focusing on maps by the celebrated author, publishing many for the first time together with writing from a variety of contributors to enquire into the relationship between the world and its representation through dialogue with her fictions. To coincide with an exhibition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps at the Architectural Association, London, opening late 2025.

Her maps offer starting points to reflect on the roles of architecture and placemaking in the creative process, worldbuilding, and paradigms of knowledge, exemplified by the map’s edges and how a map is made. Through poems, stories, essays and theory, The Word for World reimagines her maps as carrying technologies of memory.

With contributions by Federico Campagna, Theo Downes-Le Guin, Michael Everson, Daniel Heath Justice, Bhanu Kapil, Canisia Lubrin, David Naimon, Nisha Ramayya, Shoshone Collective, Rivers Solomon, Standard Deviation and Marilyn Strathern.

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