About This Stamp
The 33rd stamp in the Literary Arts series honors Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018), who expanded the scope of literature through novels and short stories that increased critical and popular appreciation of science fiction and fantasy. In fiction informed by her lifelong interests in mythology, anthropology, feminism, and Taoism, as well as through her wide-ranging translations, essays, poetry, and nonfiction, Le Guin demonstrated that no writer needed to be limited by the boundaries of any genre.
The stamp features a portrait of Le Guin based on a 2006 photograph. The background shows a scene from her landmark 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, in which an envoy from Earth named Genly Ai escapes from a prison camp across the wintry planet of Gethen with Estraven, a disgraced Gethenian politician.
Le Guin earned acclaim in 1968 with A Wizard of Earthsea, a novel about the hard-won education of a young wizard on a vast archipelago. The following year, she published The Left Hand of Darkness, an award-winning novel about an Earth diplomat who journeys to a wintry planet where two nations teeter on the brink of war — and where the inhabitants have no fixed gender most of the time. Skillfully interweaving science, anthropology, folklore, mysticism, and the perspectives of multiple characters, The Left Hand of Darkness is often praised as the work that permanently raised the literary expectations for science fiction.
Le Guin further defined her unique vision in numerous short stories, as well as in novels such as The Lathe of Heaven (1971), which focuses on a character whose dreams literally alter reality; the 1972 novella The Word for World is Forest, which explores colonialism and environmentalism on a tree-enshrouded planet; and The Dispossessed (1974), about estranged societies on neighboring planets with opposing approaches to society and government.
Never content to work within the boundaries of genre, Le Guin published volumes of poetry, wrote realistic stories about life in a small Oregon town, and started a blog at the age of 81. She translated the works of writers from Chile, Argentina, and Romania, and in 1998 she published a translation of the classical Chinese philosophical and religious text Tao Te Ching, the result of 40 years of reading and reflection.
The artist for this stamp was Donato Giancola. The art director was Antonio Alcalá.
The words “THREE OUNCE” on this stamp indicate its usage value. Like a Forever® stamp, this stamp will always be valid for the rate printed on it.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá served on the Postmaster General’s Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 2010 until 2011, when he left to become an art director for the U.S. Postal Service's stamp development program.
He is founder and co-owner of Studio A, a design practice working with museums and arts institutions. His clients include: the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, and Smithsonian Institution. He also lectures at colleges including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, SVA, Pratt, and MICA.
In 2008, his work and contributions to the field of graphic design were recognized with his selection as an AIGA Fellow. He has judged international competitions for the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, AIGA, and Graphis. Alcalá also serves on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Poster House Museum’s advisory councils. His designs are represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.
Stamp Artist
Donato Giancola
Born in 1967 and raised in Colchester, Vermont, Donato Giancola earned a bachelor of fine arts in painting from Syracuse University. His education continued in New York City as studio assistant to American realist painter Vincent Desiderio and through pilgrimages to museums of art around Europe.
Giancola began his career as a freelance illustrator in the early 1990s. Primarily working with science fiction and fantasy subjects, he has illustrated hundreds of book covers, game art and magazines, balancing modern concepts with realism to bridge the worlds of figurative and commercial arts.
His list of clients has included the United Nations, LucasArts, National Geographic, CNN, Microsoft, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Milton-Bradley, and Hasbro. A recently released 200 page tome from Dark Horse Books of his illustrations on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit lists among his greatest professional successes.
Giancola has received many awards for his art including the Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators (2008), twenty-three Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, three Hugo Awards for Best Professional Artist from the World Science Fiction Society, numerous awards from the Art Renewal Center's International Salons, and multiple silver and gold medals from the juried annual Spectrum: The Best of Contemporary Fantastic Art.
Giancola teaches at the Illustration Master Class, online through the SmArt School, and appears at various institutions, workshops, and conventions around the world, where he performs demonstrations in oil painting and lectures on his aesthetics.
His studio is in his home in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. His first illustrations for the U.S. Postal Service, featured in the Mercury Project & MESSENGER Mission (2011) stamp issuance, was followed by his portrait of Ursula K. Le Guin for the 2021 Literary Arts stamp issuance.