Hugo awards Science fiction awards held in China under fire for excluding authors

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/24/science-fiction-awards-held-in-china-under-fire-for-excluding-authors

Hugo awards
Science fiction awards held in China under fire for excluding authors

Concerns raised about interference or censorship after documents showed writers were barred despite receiving enough nominations

Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent
@amyhawk_
Wed 24 Jan 2024 10.53 EST

A prestigious literary award for science fiction, which was hosted in China for the first time, has come under fire for excluding several authors from the 2023 awards, raising concerns about interference or censorship in the awards process.

The New York Times bestseller Babel by RF Kuang, an episode of the Netflix drama The Sandman and the author Xiran Jay Zhao were among the works and authors excluded from the 2023 Hugo awards, which were administered by the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu in October.

…

Concerns have been raised that the authors were targeted for political reasons, connected to the fact that the ruling Chinese Communist party exerts a tight control on all cultural events that take place inside its borders.

…

The Worldcon organisers “should have taken our concerns about the awards being held in China seriously from the beginning. We knew something like this was going to happen,” said Xiran.

…more…

[Deep State Witch]

1. I Was At the WorldCon Where Chengdu Was Announced

WorldCon was in DC in December 2021. I signed up, mostly because I wanted to experience a WorldCon and two of my favorite authors were guests. So, that meant that I got to vote on the location for the upcoming WorldCon in 2023. It was between Chengdu, China and somewhere in the US. (St. Louis, maybe?) All I know is that I voted for the not-China option, as did pretty much everyone attending. What happened was that the Chinese bought a whole bunch of supporting memberships, which gave them the right to vote as well. They stuffed the ballot box. Everyone was pretty stunned and pissed off that this happened. I warned every author that I talked to for the rest of the con to NOT take their working laptops with them and to take burner phones.

[harumph]

6. That is good information. Thank you.

Awarding writers should be free of politics - even if the writing touches on the political.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. A lot of people expressed the fear that this would happen when a Chinese city

won the bid for the Worldcon.

[LisaM]

3. There is also speculation that the last minute votes were paid for

Last edited Wed Jan 24, 2024, 03:51 PM - Edit history (1)

by the Chinese government. In order to vote on the location, you need to belong to WSFS. Apparently at the very last minute, a couple of thousand new voters were eligible (membership is $50) and a lot of people think the government paid for these memberships. Ergo, the government likely was able to exert pressure regarding the nominations. This is a lose-lose situation. The people who won are always going to have an asterisk by their name, and the people who weren't nominated were overlooked for a prestigious prize.

There is an upcoming bid to host Worldcon by Uganda and the strong LGBQT contingent is understandably worried about attending.

I am not involved in WSFS or Worldcon but I know a number of people who are and I have been following this story with great interest.

[cbabe]

4. This mess makes me sad. Stellar award is trashed forever.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

5. I don't know if the award is fully trashed

But the odds of more diverse WorldCon locations just got a lot slimmer. I don’t see cons in more oppressive countries happening any time soon.
I was following the post where the ConCom attempted to address this -it was clear from the meticulous doublespeak they were under pressure - it was even implied some Chinese members were under threat from the government.

[cbabe]

7. How would the Hugo be redeemed? Also will

countries start shadow banning, say, athletes? What if Jesse Owens wasn’t allowed to run?

[AZSkiffyGeek]

14. The Hugos recovered from the alt-right sad/rabid puppies trying to game the awards about 10 years ago

I think this will be an "asterisk" award year, the chances of non-Western countries hosting WorldCon just shrank to almost nil, and new rules regarding transparency will be put in place, but the general WorldCon community will show its resilience. The purging of the alt-right from fandom opened the awards to an incredible amount of diversity that is driving sci-fi publishing now, and that is a very good thing.

[LisaM]

8. I don't think the award is "trashed" either, just for the one year.

It is a dilemma for the organizers (mostly volunteer) and the conference, just as you say, it's hard to find locations outside of Europe and North America (though some states are starting to pose their own challenges with their new laws). The problem as I understand it is that distasteful - for lack of a better term - regimes are willing to pay sub rosa for events like this to acquire legitimacy as a destination. This is true in sports, too, Qatar for the World Cup and Saudi Arabia in golf and now tennis.

[haele]

9. So, like sports-washing, this was a propaganda move.

Non-western science fiction is sadly under-represented, but holding events of a media like science fiction that shouldn't be censored in states where there is heavy censorship means that they would lose even more representation.

Science fiction is about answering What If and Why. That's something dictatorial regimes cannot allow.

Haele

[LisaM]

10. Yes, it's a Hobson's Choice, for sure.

I don't know what's going to happen with women's tennis.

[cbabe]

13. Also from the link:

“I can only guess to why I was excluded, but it probably has something to do with my critical comments about the Chinese government in the past,” said Xiran. “You would think that as a big, powerful country, China would be graceful about criticisms, but they in fact take it very personally, and doubly so when it’s from Chinese diaspora.”

[Deep State Witch]

11. That was the thought going around WorldCon 2021, too.

That the Chinese government paid for the supporting memberships to flood the ballot box.

I'm not really involved in any of it. Literary cons aren't my thing. However, I had applied to the Art Show and got in, so I had to be there all 4 days. It was cool and I sold about half of the pieces that I submitted. It was an experience. After it was announced, I warned any of the authors that I talked to not to bring their working laptops. Because they WILL be scanned, and your latest book will hit the shelves in Shanghai before you're even published.

[electric_blue68]

12. Oh, woah! I Love World Con even if I've only managed to get there for one day, twice...

(or for the long-winded name for the NA con when WC is over seas)

Baltimore '99, Philadelphia '01
I voted for Philly in '99, and was happy it won! I also loved stopping by the Japanese Host City voting party. I think I might still have the Map of Tokyo. I still have my Con events booklets for Phil & Balt. 🧡🧡 Great times!

This is all in of the fact that traveling in that time period ('96 onward) say up till '22 I would have continued to only afford 1 day visits down (or up, say, had it been in Boston) Now my extra income is less so who knows. I wouldn't have gone '20 - '22+ re Covid anyway.

Oh.. if only it could return once within the next ?7 yrs to NYC! Sigh...
Hoboken, it Newark'd be fine, too!

It would be good to have the WC in more diverse countries, as well.