On Thursday, a major scandal rocked the world of science fiction and fantasy writing. Leaked emails reveal that writers can be quietly stripped of winning the prestigious Hugo Prize if their work displeases the Chinese Communist Party.
of hugo award is one of the oldest and most prestigious science fiction and fantasy literature awards. They have been presented annually since 1955 by the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), a large, loosely organized literary society. Members nominate works published in the previous year in various categories, including Best Novel, Best Short Story, and Best Professional Artist. The annual conference that awards the awards is held in a different city each year.
The 2023 Hugo Awards were held in October in Chengdu, China, where Chengdu’s science fiction fan community lobbied hard for the honor of hosting the conference.
As soon as the finalists were announced, the science fiction world started buzzing. question As to why certain popular authors did not, even though they clearly received enough votes from Worldcon members. do not have Listed as a finalist for the award. Authors mysteriously left out included Rebecca F. Quan, Sheeran Jay Zhao, Paul Weimer, and perhaps the biggest name on the list. sandman and american gods Author Neil Gaiman.
Rebecca F. Quan is new york times American best-selling author whose books Babel, or the necessity of violence: The difficult history of the Oxford translator revolution. Having recently won several other prestigious awards, her fans quickly noticed that she had been left out of the Hugo finalists. Quan herself expressed her confusion that although her book could win other awards, she was not shortlisted for Hugo.
Rebecca F. Quan (Mike Coppola/Time Magazine Getty Images)
“I think this was more of an undesirability issue than an ineligibility. Eliminating ‘undesirable’ work is not only embarrassing for everyone involved, but it also renders the entire process and organization illegal.” ” she said.
It turns out Mr. Quan was right.a deep dive Journalists Chris M. Barclay and Jason Sandford have emails showing that Worldcon administrators were secretly blacklisting books and authors they thought Chinese censors would dislike. This confirmed the concerns of Worldcon participants, who strongly criticized the decision to hold the event in totalitarian China.
Barclay attended the convention and said that despite all the controversy, it seemed to have gone fairly well, with the exception of mysterious delays in announcing the list of candidates and the results of the vote. In fact, these results were not made public until December, 46 days after the competition, and the full list of candidates was not made public until January 20th.
The Chengdu Worldcon convention committee refused to explain why Quan, Gaiman and others were not on the list of candidates, but Barclay and Sandford said political considerations kept them off the list. Found an email confirming that. Even more shocking, journalists discovered that Worldcon managers in the United States and Canada were “active participants” in censorship.
The missing books and authors were secretly blacklisted because they discussed topics unacceptable to the Chinese Communist Party, including the suppression of democracy in Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong, and the genocide of the Uyghur people.
The 2023 Hugo Awards ceremony was held at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention Worldcon held in Chengdu, southwest Sichuan Province, China on October 21, 2023. (Wang Xi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Mr. Quan’s book babel, For example, it stars a British-raised Chinese protagonist who studies to become a translator in an alternate history where magic exists. Political revolution is a major element of the story. babel Despite having the third-highest number of nominations at the competition, it was removed from the list of finalists.
Siran Jay Zhao’s books iron widow It’s a great work about the history of the Chinese Empire, and it features giant robots. Paul Weimer came under question for allegedly traveling to Tibet, discussing Hong Kong’s repression on social media, and writing a positive review of a book that reinvented classical Chinese literature with LGBTQ themes. Weimer later pointed out that he had never actually been to Tibet.
No one was ever sure why Gaiman was blackballed, but apparently it had something to do with the Netflix television adaptation of a particular issue of his classic comic book series. Sandman. The episode in question follows Gaiman’s affable female embodiment of death (a very pale goth girl in the original, a black woman in the Netflix version) as she goes about her daily task of guiding people into the afterlife.
The scandal was made all the more infuriating because the leaked emails showed no direct interference from the Chinese government. Instead, American and European tournament organizers obediently blacklisted the works and authors they feared. maybe Anger the Chinese Communist Party. Some of the emails referenced past instances of Chinese government censorship and attempted to predict which books should be banned because they might provoke communist censorship.
Mr. Barclay and Mr. Sanford said that “certain finalists may not be motivated by concerns about what would happen if they receive a final vote, or pressure from Chinese economic interests or companies that do not want to jeopardize a major investment opportunity.” There is a possibility that self-censorship was carried out due to this.”
Mr. Weimer was incredulous when Mr. Barclay and Mr. Sanford told him about the “political investigation” that the Hugo Commission had conducted before blacklisting him.
“So they created a document on all of us and looked at things from 10 years ago? I mean, I honestly think the Hugo Commission is a coward,” Weimer said. he said.
“That’s not even competent political censorship. It’s bullshit,” he scoffed.
Diane Lacy, one of Hugo’s 2023 administrators, admitted to Berkeley and Stanford that she was a little panicked because the censorship was shoddy and she didn’t have time to vet all the potentially problematic books. Lacey said she was alarmed by Zhao’s sci-fi fable about the rise of China’s empress simply because she wasn’t sure how today’s Communist Party censors felt about that particular history.
“I was asked to vet candidates for works that focused on China, Taiwan, Tibet, or other themes that might be of concern within China, and I was embarrassed to do so,” Lacey said.
Esther McCallum Stewart, chair of the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland, said: statement On Thursday, it apologized for the “damage caused to the nominees, finalists, community, and the Hugo, Lodestar and Astounding Awards” due to the Chengdu censorship scandal.
Ms McCallum-Steward shared the literary community’s “deep sadness and anger” over the Chengdu scandal and said at the Glasgow event that “steps will be taken to ensure transparency and to redress the serious loss of trust in the award’s management”. “I will teach you,” he promised. ”
On the same day, Hugo Awards administrator Cat Jones, who wrote part of the Chengdu emails released by Barclay and Sanford, said: resigned From the 2024 Glasgow Games. Several other Hugo administrators have already resigned in the wake of the scandal.
