# Tehanu

Tehanu /təˈhɑːnuː/, initially subtitled The Last Book of Earthsea, is a fantasy novel by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Atheneum in February 1990. It is the fourth novel set in the fictional archipelago Earthsea, published almost twenty years after the first three Earthsea novels (1968–1972), and not the last, despite its initial subtitle.
The novel is viewed as an enlargement of the earlier Earthsea trilogy (marketed for young adults), as Tehanu presents an aging hero and heroine—Ged, a principal character in all three earlier Earthsea novels, and Tenar, the protagonist of the second in the series, The Tombs of Atuan. It won the 1990 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1991 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

## Background

As described by the author, Ursula Le Guin, in a recorded afterward to the 2016 audiobook version, as Tehanu opens, approximately 25 years have passed since the events at the end of The Tombs of Atuan, "time enough for the girl Tenar to become a widow with grown children"; and "a day or two" have passed since the close of The Farthest Shore and Tehanu's Chapter 4, "Kalessin", "time enough for [that] dragon... to carry Ged from Roke to Gont."

## Book
### Plot

Goha lives alone on Gont because her farmer husband Flint has died, and her two children, Apple and Spark, are grown. A burned child is brought to her at Oak Farm, and she saves her life. The burns leave scarring on the face, and the fingers of one hand have been fused into a claw. Goha adopts her and gives the child the name Therru, which means flame.
Goha learns that the mage Ogion requests her presence at his deathbed in Re Albi. She sets out to visit him with Therru. On the way, she encounters a group of ruffians, one of whom is Handy, who claims to be Therru's uncle. Ogion reveals Goha as Tenar, and he says she must teach Therru. After his death, Tenar stays on at his cottage, assisted by Moss, a local witch, and Heather, a simple village girl. Ged (also called Sparrowhawk) arrives on the back of the dragon Kalessin, unconscious and near death, having spent all his wizardly powers in sealing the gap between the worlds of the living and the dead created by the evil sorceror Cob. Tenar nurses Ged back to health, but when the new king Lebannen sends envoys to bring him back to Havnor for the coronation, Ged cannot face them. He accepts Tenar's offer to return to Oak Farm to manage things there in her absence and once more takes up life as a goatherd. While at Re Albi, Tenar is confronted by the local lord's wicked mage, Aspen, who attempts to put a curse on her, but is thwarted.
Tenar informs the king's men that she cannot reveal Ged's whereabouts, and they accept the situation and depart. Tenar is threatened by both Aspen and Handy, and she flees with Therru. Confused by Aspen's magic, Tenar is almost overtaken by Handy, but escapes to Gont Port, taking refuge in the king's ship. Lebannen takes Tenar and Therru to Valmouth, where Tenar eventually returns to Oak Farm to find that Ged is away tending goats in the mountains for the season. Tenar settles back into life on the farm, until one night when Handy and a few other men attempt to break into the house. They are driven off by Tenar and Ged, and the latter nearly kills one of them with a pitchfork. Tenar and Ged begin a relationship, acknowledging that they had always loved each other. Ged wants to settle down and live an ordinary life. Together, they teach and care for Therru and manage the farm. Tenar's son Spark returns home from the sea and demands the farm. Under Gontish law Oak Farm belongs to him.
Tenar receives word that Moss is dying and wants to see her. She, Ged and Therru leave for Re Albi. However, the message was a trap set by Aspen, who reveals himself to be a follower of Cob. Tenar and Ged are led to the lord's mansion controlled by Aspen's magic. Therru runs to the cliff behind Ogion's cottage, where she calls to the dragon Kalessin for help, and reveals her true nature: she is in fact "a double being, half human, half-dragon". Aspen and his followers bring both Tenar and Ged up to the clifftop. Under the influence of Aspen's spell, they are both moving to jump to their deaths when the dragon Kalessin arrives, burning Aspen and his men. Kalessin addresses Therru by her true name Tehanu, calling her its own daughter, and asks her if she would like to leave with it. Tehanu decides to stay with Tenar and Ged. All three settle down to a simple life at Ogion's old cottage.

### Major characters

The primary characters of the novel are:
* Goha, as known by her husband and locals, revealed to be Tenar, former priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, and the White Lady of Gont
* Ged, also called Sparrowhawk, the Archmage of Roke
* Aspen, revealed as Erisen, a twisted mage and follower of Cob
* Kalessin, a dragon, the eldest
* Therru, a burned child, revealed as Tehanu, and a woman-dragon

### Publication history

Tehanu is the fourth novel set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea, published almost twenty years after the first three Earthsea novels (1968–1972); it was not the last, despite the subtitle of the first edition, which was later dropped.
* Le Guin, Ursula K. (1990). Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea. Earthsea cycle. Vol. 4. New York, New York: Atheneum (Simon & Schuster). ISBN 0689315953. Retrieved November 30, 2024.
* Le Guin, Ursula K. (author, narrator) & Sterlin, Jenny (narrator) (2016). Tehanu: The Earthsea Cycle, Book Four (audiobook). unabridged ed. Landover, Maryland: Recorded Books—RBmedia. ASIN B01G9EP4ZQ. Retrieved 4 December 2024. Includes extensive interpretive and explanatory material composed and read by Le Guin, entitled "An Afterward From the Author".

## Analysis

The initial trilogy focuses on the character and quests of Ged, with Tenar as the central character of the second book. Writing for Reactor Magazine, Jo Walton finds Tehanu "problematic", writing that it is "a restless book with very strange pacing". She adds that it is surprising that it "works as well as it does", given the competing demands of "the force of story" – plot, action – and Le Guin's evident intention to place "women's domestic lives" at the novel's centre.
Sean Guynes, also in Reactor Magazine, calls Tehanu Le Guin's best novel. In his view, it went beyond the initial trilogy in its willingness to show the reader the characters' dark sides as they grow older. Like The Farthest Shore, it reflects on "power and its loss"; like The Tombs of Atuan, it focuses on gender; but unlike them, it makes use of a new "reflective distance", revisiting the trilogy and addressing "earlier faults" in its writing, just as The Tombs of Atuan had revisited Earthsea's lack of "a female protagonist".
In an analysis from her doctoral dissertation – that Le Guin featured on her webpage – Sharada Bhanu argues that Tehanu functions with Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind as a second trilogy, unlike the first. In Bhanu's view, the first looked at coming-of-age, while the second presented sexual experience and "middle-aged protagonists", seen "from the outside". This changed the work's focus and "emotional tone". The effect, Bhanu writes, is that the "second trilogy enlarges, interrogates and deconstructs the first", the "cultural ethos" now being feminism. She quotes an Earthsea proverb, "Weak as women’s magic; wicked as women’s magic", and notes the male focus of the earlier trilogy, with women unable to enter the school of Roke. Tehanu compensates "by presenting a woman's world" from the now middle-aged Tenar's point of view, alongside sympathetic portraits of other women "of various ages and professions", and "weak and limited" men "even when well meaning".

## Reception

Michael Dirda, writing for The Washington Post, notes that Tehanu "reveal[s] what happened to [the series'] hero and heroine in old age", and with its emphasis on these aging, earlier novel protagonists is thus an enlargement of the earlier Earthsea trilogy (which was largely marketed for young adults). Kirkus Reviews comments that "Yes, there are dragons; but the human story and its meaning are primary here. Unlike Ged's, Le Guin's power is undiminished." It notes that Ged and Tenar are "past middle age", reflecting the slower action, but "even young readers will be beguiled by the flawless, poetic prose, the philosophy expressed in thoughtful, potent metaphor, and the consummately imagined world". The Science Fiction Review summarized the novel as "Great things happen to great people, whatever their station in life, and wherever they may be. An excellent story and a fine capstone to Earthsea."
Tehanu won the 1990 Nebula Award; this made Le Guin the first person to win three Nebula Awards for Best Novel. It won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.