Science fiction authors were excluded from awards for fear of offending China
Organizers of the Hugo Awards, one of the most prominent literary awards in science fiction, excluded multiple authors from shortlists last year over concerns their work or public comments could be offensive to China, leaked emails show. https://t.co/reJJbY0U3a
- NBC News (@NBCNews) February 16, 2024
Organizers of the Hugo Awards, one of the most prominent literary awards in science fiction, excluded multiple authors from shortlists last year over concerns their work or public comments could be offensive to China, leaked emails show.
Questions had been raised as to why writers including Neil Gaiman, R.F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Paul Weimer had been deemed ineligible as finalists despite earning enough votes according to information published last month by awards organizers. Emails released this week revealed that they were concerned about how some authors might be perceived in China, where the Hugo Awards were held last year for the first time.
“As we are happening in China and the ‘laws’ we operate under are different… we need to highlight anything of sensitive political nature in the work,” Dave McCarty, the head of the 2023 awards jury, wrote in an email dated June 5.
Any work focusing on China, Taiwan, Tibet or other sensitive issues, he added, “needs to be highlighted so that we can determine if it is safe to put it on the ballot.”
Some books, like Kuang’s “Babel” - which won the 2023 British Book Award for Fiction - appear to have been excluded simply for taking place in China. Zhao’s novel “Iron Widow” was flagged as being a “reimagining of the rise of the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian.”