#Neil Gaiman, Paul Weimer among writers excluded from Hugo Awards over fear of offending China: report

The Hugo Awards, one of the most prestigious literary awards in science fiction, excluded several authors last year over concerns that their work could be offensive to China, leaked emails show.

Authors Neil Gaiman, Paul Weimer, R.F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao were deemed ineligible as finalists in last year’s awards despite earning enough votes. Emails released showed that award organizers were concerned with how the authors would be perceived in China, File 770, a science fiction outlet, reported.

The Hugo Awards were hosted in China last year. According to the reports, Dave McCarty, who headed the 2023 award selection, wrote in an email last June that since the event was “happening in China” and the laws they must operate under “are different,” that the organizers should “highlight anything of sensitive political nature.”

Work that focused on China, Taiwan, Tibet or other topics deemed sensitive need to be “highlighted so that we can determine if it is safe to put it on the ballot.” McCarty resigned from his position last month, NBC News reported.

The email was first reported by reporters on the news site File 770. The reporters found Weimer had found out that he was deemed “not eligible” for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer when the voting statistics were released.

The report’s authors also found that administrators for the awards who were from the United States and Canada only appear to have read works that were from the Western world and published in English. They found that Western award administrators did not raise concerns about Chinese authors’ books because they may not have read them.

“Because of this, it is possible some of these Chinese works were removed for reasons other than slating,” the authors write.

The emails were released by organizer Diane Lacey, who told the authors of the report that the committee was told to “vet nominees for works” that may be sensitive to China.

“To my shame, I did so,” she wrote in an apology letter. “Understand that I signed up fully aware that there were going to be issues. I am not that naïve regarding the Chinese political system, but I wanted the Hugos to happen, and not have them completely crash and burn.”