Tenar in the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le GuinRead about another entry on the list.
Tenar’s journey is a fascinating one. Trained from girlhood to be a priestess of a cruel human-sacrificing cult, she saves the erstwhile hero of the series, the mage Ged, as he enters the tombs of her gods. Later he saves her from her slavelike life as priestess. Tenar turns down the opportunity to learn magic and settles down to marry – but not Ged – and have children.
However, and this is where it gets really interesting, her story doesn’t end there. In the novel Tehanu, Tenar is an old woman and the protagonist of the story who, once again, ends up saving the great mage Ged. How often do we get to see grandmothers be heroines in fantasy literature?
A Wizard of Earthsea is among BBC.com Culture’s best children’s books ever published in English, five books that changed Gary Corby, and Lev Grossman's top five fantasy novels.
--Marshal Zeringue
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