A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea,  but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless  youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered  with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow  upon the world. This is the tale of his testing,  how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an  ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to  restore the balance.

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was born in 1929; her parents were the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kroeber. She writes both poetry and prose, including realistic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, young children's books, books for young adults, screenplays, essays, verbal texts for musicians, and voicetexts for performance or recording. She has published five books of poetry, seventeen novels, over a hundred short stories (collected in eight volumes), two collections of essays, eleven books for children, and two volumes of translation. Several of Le Guin's major titles have remained continuously in print for over thirty years. Her best known fantasy works, the first four Books of Earthsea, have sold millions of copies in America and England, and have been translated into sixteen languages. Three of Le Guin's books have been finalists for the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and among the many honors her writing has received are the National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula awards, the Kafka award, a Pushcart Prize, the Howard Vursell award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Award.