Controversy over 'inexplicable' exclusion of R F Kuang and Xiran Jay Zhao from Hugo Awards 2023

Authors R F Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Neil Gaiman have raised questions after it was revealed that they were ruled ineligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards despite receiving enough nominations.

On the weekend of 20th January, the Hugo, Lodestar and Astounding Awards released its document of voting statistics for the 2023 awards held at the World Science Fiction Convention (WSFC) in Chengdu, China. 

The document revealed that Kuang’s Babel (HarperVoyager), recipient of the British Book Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Nebula Novel Award 2023 and the Locus Award 2023, was deemed ineligible for the Hugo Best Novel Award despite receiving the third most nominating votes. Like other nominees in the category, including Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes (Tor) and T Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone (Titan Books), Babel was published in hardback in 2022. 

Zhao, author of Iron Widow (Oneworld), was also deemed ineligible for the Astounding Award even though the writer received the fourth most nominating votes in the category. On a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Zhao said: "I just found out R F Kuang and I were deliberately excluded from the Hugo Awards in Chengdu last year for unspecified reasons…" 

Kuang also posted a statement on Instagram: "I initially planned to say nothing about Babel’s inexplicable disqualification from the Hugo Awards… I wish to clarify that no reason for Babel’s ineligibility was given to me or my team."

An episode of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, "Episode 6: The Sound of Her Wings", was also excluded from the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Award. The episode had received the third-highest nominating votes in the category. 

The Hugo Awards has not clarified why the nominees were found ineligible. 

The awards administrator Dave McCarty responded to questions on his personal Facebook page, including queries from Gaiman and Paul Weimer, who had been excluded from the Best Fan Writer award.

In response to Gaiman’s question, "Is there anyone who could actually explain why ’Sandman’ Episode 6 was ineligible?", McCarty said: "The only statement from the administration team that I can share is the one that I already have –  after we reviewed the constitution and the rules we must follow, we determined the work was not eligible." 

When pressed by Publishers Marketplace he declined to cite the rules that made Babel and other nominees ineligible.

McCarty also denied involvement from the Chinese government, telling Publishers Marketplace: "I have seen a few people suggest that government officials told us what to do, but such was not the case. The Hugo administration team, with me at the head, made all the eligibility determinations.” 

The Hugo Team at Chengdu World Con has been approached for comment. 

Writing on Facebook, Gaiman said: “Until now, one of the things that’s always been refreshing about the Hugos has been the transparency and clarity of the process... This is obfuscatory, and without some clarity it means that whatever has gone wrong here is unfixable, or may be unfixable in ways that don’t damage the respect the Hugos have earned over the last 70 years.”