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Science fiction authors were excluded from awards for fear of offending China (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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Leaked emails show organizers of the prestigious Hugo Awards vetted writers’ work and comments with regard to China, where last year’s awards were held.

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.

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[–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

That part of what makes what happened with the 2023 Hugos so surprising and appalling – it’s completely out of character with the recent history of the awards and the organization to meekly knuckle under and self-censor for fear of angering Chinese authorities, when it’s been so bold in standing up to outside influences so recently.

Has there been a change in organizational staff to account for this?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Given that the news only just broke and organizational business has to be voted on at the next convention, it's a bit soon to look for big moves -- but Glasgow 2024 did make a statement that their Hugo Administrator who was involved in the 2023 awards was removed from her position.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I was actually asking about when the 2023 administrator started her position (was she there for a long time or newbie), in relation to when the event in China happened, but your information is actually good to know too, so thank you.

    I had not been following this at all, so I was just wondering if new management came in and then this happened immediately, or was it old existing management that for whatever reason changed their mindset to allow something like that to happen later on.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Ah, my bad... There's a core of people attached to Worldcon Intellectual Property who are supposed to support the hosting convention's committee. This included Dave McCarty (who was removed from his position within WIP back in January as this situation evolved), and it seems like he pulled together a support team of experienced hands when it became clear that the Chengdu committee had not realized the extent of their responsibilities and couldn't assemble a local Hugo committee capable of handling everything in the time available. So while it would be convenient to say "hey, the local committee is ultimately responsible for the way the Hugoa are run!" that's only sort of true at the best-run of cons, and certainly not true in the case of Chengdu.

    People who've been doing this for a long time and should have known better ran scared from the Chinese government's censorship bureaucracy, for shortsighted and poorly justified reasons. The good news, such as it is, is that as that has been revealed the folks responsible have been removed from their positions, but it's still disappointing to find out about. I worked with Dave McCarty in the runup to a previous Worldcon and I would have expected better of him.

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