The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin

When Ursula K. Le Guin started writing a new novel, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World is the first publication focusing on maps by the celebrated author, publishing many for the first time together with writing from a variety of perspectives to enquire into the relationship between the world and its representation through creative dialogue with her fictions. 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.

Co—published by Spiral House and AA Publications to coincide with an exhibition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps at the Architectural Association, London, opening on 10 October 2025.