Gifts is a 275 page fantasy novel first published in 2004 and written by the highly distinguished novelist and literary critic Ursula K. Le Guin. It is the first book in a loosely connected series, Annals of the Western Shore, that is written for readers of ages twelve and up. Voices and Powers are the sequels. These novels are set in a fantasy world where slavery, class inequalities, religious fanaticism, cruelty, and violence are problems. The social and political backgrounds have elements calling to mind ancient Scotland, Greece, and Mesopotamia. In each novel, a different first person narrator tells a coming-of-age story in which he or she under stress bravely learns the lessons of power and responsibility. Harcourt's summary of Gifts reads as follows.
Scattered among poor, desolate farms, the clans of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability--with a glance, a gesture, a word--to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in constant fear that one family might unleash its gift against another. Two young people, friends since childhood, decide not to use their gifts. One, a girl, refuses to bring animals to their death in the hunt. The other, a boy, wears a blindfold lest his eyes and his anger kill.
In this beautifully crafted story, Ursula K. Le Guin writes of the proud cruelty of power, of how hard it is to grow up, and of how much harder still it is to find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light.
