Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
It was announced on Monday that winners of the World Fantasy Award will no longer receive a bust of HP Lovecraft as their trophy. The decision was made in the wake of growing discomfort among authors who authors regard Lovecraft as an inappropriate figure owing to his “fundamental racism”.
#WorldFantasy2015 Award announces this is the last year of the Lovecraft statuette.
— Locus Magazine (@locusmag) November 8, 2015
The Guardian reports:
The World Fantasy Award trophy will no longer be modelled on HP Lovecraft, it has been announced, following a campaign last year that called the author out as an “avowed racist” with “hideous opinions”.
The change was revealed at the World Fantasy Convention on Sunday, where David Mitchell took the top award, the best novel prize, for The Bone Clocks. It beat titles by authors including Jeff VanderMeer, Robert Jackson Bennett, Jo Walton and Katherine Addison to the best novel prize, with other winners at the Saratoga Springs convention including Ramsey Campbell and Sheri S Tepper, who took life achievement awards.
Daniel José Older, who started a petition to introduce the change last year, tweeted:
BREAKING: THEY JUST ANNOUNCED THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD WILL NO LONGER BE HP LOVECRAFT. WE DID IT. YOU DID IT. IT'S DONE. YESSSSSSSS
— Daniel José Older (@djolder) November 8, 2015
Jeff VanderMeer tweeted:
I'm glad Lovecraft won't be the symbol of the World Fantasy Award anymore (and did in fact lobby the board directly). It's a no-brainer.
— Jeff VanderMeer (@jeffvandermeer) November 9, 2015
In 2011, Nigerian-American fantasy and science fiction author Nnedi Okorafor received the World Fantasy Award for her novel, Who Fears Death. She was the first black person to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel since its inception in 1975.
In a blogpost at the time, the author recalled showing her trophy to a friend, who reacted by introducing her to a poem Lovecraft had written in 1912 entitled “On the Creation of Niggers”.
On the Creation of Niggers (1912)
by HP LovecraftWhen, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove’s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.
Okorafor was enraged. She decided to find out what other authors had to say about Lovecraft’s racism, and took to Facebook, where several authors (including Steve Barnes and Jeff VanderMeer) weighed in. The previous year’s World Fantasy Award winner China Miéville, who’d done extensive research on the horror writer, said that “the depth and viciousness of Lovecraft’s racism is known” to him and that it goes further than mere racism; his entire oeuvre is “inspired by and deeply structured with race hatred”. Miéville referred to Michel Houellebecq, who said that it was “racism itself” that raised in Lovecraft a “poetic trance”.
Okorafor writes: “This is something people of color, women, minorities must deal with more than most when striving to be the greatest that they can be in the arts: The fact that many of The Elders we honour and need to learn from hate or hated us.”
Read the article:
Do I want “The Howard” (the nickname for the World Fantasy Award statuette. Lovecraft’s full name is “Howard Phillips Lovecraft”) replaced with the head of some other great writer? Maybe. Maybe it’s about that time. Maybe not. What I know I want is to face the history of this leg of literature rather than put it aside or bury it. If this is how some of the great minds of speculative fiction felt, then let’s deal with that… as opposed to never mention it or explain it away. If Lovecraft’s likeness and name are to be used in connection to the World Fantasy Award, I think there should be some discourse about what it means to honor a talented racist.
I loved China’s way of dealing with his “Howard”. He said:
“So where does that leave the World Fantasy Award? Well, in my case, I have always done something very specific and simple. I consider the award inextricable from but not reducible to Lovecraft himself. Therefore, I was very honoured to receive the award as representative of a particular field of literature. And the award itself, the statuette of the man himself? I put it out of sight, in my study, where only I can see it, and I have turned it to face the wall. So I am punishing the little fucker like the malevolent clown he was, I can look at it and remember the honour, and above all I am writing behind Lovecraft’s back. ”
Also read:
Book details
- Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
EAN: 9780765385253
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
EAN: 9781444762761
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
EAN: 9780756407285
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
EAN: 9781444762792
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
EAN: 9781444762754
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor
Book homepage
EAN: 9781607014058
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Image courtesy of nnedi.com