Orsinian Tales

Orsinian Tales is a collection of short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin.

The setting is a fictional Eastern European country, at different periods in time ranging from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. In view of clues in the text, an affinity of place names and a number of particular tales, it is likely that Hungary was a large part of the inspiration for Orsinia. This is particularly clear in the stories of the working-class characters.

The cycle was extended by the story "Unlocking the Air", anthologised in Unlocking the Air and Other Stories (1996), which is set at the time of the downfall of Communism in Orsinia – and the rest of Eastern Europe – in the winter of 1989. In addition, Le Guin's novel Malafrena is set in the Orsinia of the 1820s.

Contents

• "The Fountains"
• "The Barrow" (1976, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1976)
• "Ile Forest"
• "Conversations At Night"
• "The Road East"
• "Brothers and Sisters" (1976, The Little Magazine, Vol. 10, Nos. 1 & 2)
• "A Week in the Country" (1976, The Little Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 4)
• "An die Musik" (1961, The Western Humanities Review, Vol XV, No. 3)
• "The House"
• "The Lady of Moge"
• "Imaginary Countries" (The Harvard Advocate)