Leaked Emails and Files Confirm Some Suspicions Regarding the Hugo Awards Debacle

The latest update on the Hugo Awards scandal confirms what many suspected — that works and authors (especially Babel, a Sandman episode, and Xiran Jay Zhao) deemed ineligible despite their popularity were labelled as such at least in part because of politics.

Writers Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford discuss the contents of the files and emails that were released from Diane Lacey, a member of the Hugo Award administration, in a report posted here, and conclude that the exclusion of certain works and authors is censorship.

From the report: “Emails and files released by one of the administrators of the 2023 Hugo Awards indicate that authors and works deemed ‘not eligible’ for the awards were removed due to political considerations. In particular, administrators of the awards from the United States and Canada researched political concerns related to Hugo-eligible authors and works and discussed removing certain ones from the ballot for those reasons, revealing they were active participants in the censorship that took place.”

You can read the entire breakdown here.

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