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.
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    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.

    “As we are happening in China and the ‘laws’ we operate under are different… we need to highlight anything of sensitive political nature in the work,” Dave McCarty, the head of the 2023 awards jury, wrote in an email dated June 5.

    Last year’s Hugo Awards, which unlike most literary prizes are run by fans, were held in October during the 81st World Science Fiction Convention, known as Worldcon, in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.

    The emails, which were first reported by science fiction writers and journalists Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford on science fiction news site File 770 and Sanford’s Patreon account, show awards organizers detailing potential “negatives of China” in authors’ published works, book reviews and social media histories.

    Organizers also flagged comments that authors, including Barkley and Sanford, had made about the merits of holding the awards in Chengdu and whether they signed or shared the open letter.

    “They went through all my blog posts and all my reviews like a fine-tooth comb,” Paul Weimer, an American author and three-time Hugo nominee who was disqualified, told NBC News in a phone interview on Friday.

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