Publishing Ursula K. Le Guin in East Germany (Critical Essay)

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed were two of the few American science fiction novels published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Le Guin shares this distinction with Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2) Like all literature that appeared in East Germany, Le Guin's titles passed through an elaborate approval process before they appeared in the science fiction publishing house: Verlag Das Neue Berlin (DNB). The Left Hand of Darkness came out in 1978 under the title Winterplanet. The Dispossessed was published in 1987, just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 as Planet der Habenichtse (literally, planet of those with nothing). At first, it may come as a surprise that these particular authors made it past a censor that enforced the prevailing ideology of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). Many outside of the former GDR assume publishing policy was determined from the top down. This belief certainly has its basis in truth. Within the country's Ministry of Culture, publishing decisions were made in accordance with the official literary policy of Socialist Realism. Originally adapted in the fifties from Stalinist Russia, this politically driven construct envisioned all literature to be an educational tool with which to model the future envisioned by the SED. All East German authors were required to demonstrate their Parteilichkeit, or dedication to the party, through their portrayal of this totalizing, dogmatic "reality."