The board of the World Fantasy awards has said that it is \u201cin discussion\u201d about its winners\u2019 statuette, modelled on the late HP Lovecraft, after calls for the trophy to be changed due to Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cfundamental racism\u201d.<\/p>\n
Over the past four decades, the prestigious fantasy prize has been won by writers including Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe and Haruki Murakami. It comes in the shape of a bust of Lovecraft, the creator of the Cthulhu mythos and prolific writer of weird fiction, who \u2013 2011\u2019s best novel winner Nnedi Okorafor was stunned to discover \u2013 was also the author of a poem that gives an unflattering description of black people:<\/p>\n
When, long ago, the gods created Earth
\nIn Jove\u2019s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
\nThe beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
\nYet were they too remote from humankind.
\nTo fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
\nTh\u2019Olympian host conceiv\u2019d a clever plan.
\nA beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
\nFilled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.<\/p>\n\u2013 H.P. Lovecraft, On the Creation of Niggers (1912)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At the time, the Nigerian-American author wrote of her conflicted feelings over the fact that \u201ca statuette of this racist man\u2019s head is one of my greatest honours as a writer\u201d. Now her fellow author Daniel Jos\u00e9 Older has launched a petition calling for the organisers of the prize to make the late African-American science fiction writer Octavia Butler the inspiration for the statue rather than Lovecraft.<\/p>\n
Older has almost 2,500 signatories to date, including Okorafor and other authors; he writes that while Lovecraft \u201cdid leave a lasting mark on speculative fiction, he was also an avowed racist and a terrible wordsmith\u201d, and \u201cit\u2019s time to stop co-signing his bigotry and move sci-fi\/fantasy out of the past\u201d.<\/p>\n
The novelist told the Guardian that while he reads Lovecraft himself, and appreciates \u201caspects\u201d of his work, \u201cthere\u2019s no reason, in 2014, to have a man who enthusiastically advocated for genocide be the face of fantasy\u2019s greatest honour\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have been debating whether Lovecraft being a racist matters or whether it\u2019s his writing that should be at issue. I\u2019m saying: both matter. After decades and decades of deeply embedded racism being prevalent in the fantasy genre, it\u2019s time to make courageous moves against racism, and that includes not championing a vile racist,\u201d said Older.<\/p>\n
Okorafor, who was not involved with setting up the petition, said she loved the idea of Butler replacing Lovecraft, also suggesting the late Diana Wynne Jones as a possible option, \u201cor some sort of mystical creature or plant\u201d.<\/p>\n
She also welcomed the controversy as an occasion for opening an important discussion. \u201cI think seeing all aspects of authors like this (especially when it manifests clearly in the author\u2019s work) will help us be better able to deal with issues of race. Instead of pretending it\u2019s not there or feigning colour-blindness, it\u2019s better to DEAL with it. Talk it out. See it. Accept it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not comfortable to question someone you idolise. It raises emotions. The practice of cognitive dissonance abounds. There are uncomfortable arguments. Snarky rebuttals and retorts are written. These are growing pains.\u201d<\/p>\n
Older said there had been \u201cthoughtful and brilliant points made on all sides and some ridiculous, nonsensical trolling\u201d in response to his suggestion, adding that he \u201cwasn\u2019t surprised that some folks took personal offence to the petition. Lovecraft has long been fandom\u2019s favourite racist and it\u2019s always fascinating to watch people tie themselves in all sorts of rhetorical knots trying to justify appalling hatred on the one hand and sloppy prose on the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
One lengthy defence has been offered by Lovecraft expert ST Joshi<\/a>, who writes of \u201cthe significant question as to whether racism should be regarded as so much more significant a moral, intellectual, and personal flaw than many other stances one could name\u201d, and of \u201cthe further absurdity of thinking that Lovecraft\u2019s undeniable racism somehow negates his immense talents as a writer and also negates the many virtues \u2013 intellectual, aesthetic, and personal \u2013 that he displayed over his life\u201d.<\/p>\n
A Salon article by the writer Laura Miller<\/a> saw the self-avowed Lovecraft fan write that \u201cwe need to be able to accept the truth that even great artists \u2013 greater ones than Lovecraft, certainly \u2013 have their ugly sides, and that ugliness can be inextricable from their greatness. Art, being human, is an expression of the whole self. This isn\u2019t the same as accepting Lovecraft\u2019s racism. You can acknowledge, contemplate and discuss that racism without feeling obliged to reject the work as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
She adds: \u201cWhen Joshi writes, \u2018If Nnedi Okorafor and China Mi\u00e9ville [another WFA winner who objects to the trophy] are so offended at owning the WFA, they should simply return it and be done with the matter,\u2019 he is essentially telling writers like Okorafor that they must accept an honour from that community in the form of a man who considered [black people] to be \u2018semi-human\u2019 and filled \u2018with vice\u2019. Suck it up, or get out. I\u2019m pretty sure this is not the message the World Fantasy Convention meant to send when they gave Okorafor the prize in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board of the World Fantasy awards, which will be held in November in Washington, DC, said it \u201chas been and continues to be in discussion about the future of the award statuette\u201d. – The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The board of the World Fantasy awards has said that it is \u201cin discussion\u201d about its winners\u2019 statuette, modelled on the late HP Lovecraft, after calls for the trophy to be changed due to Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cfundamental racism\u201d. Over the past four decades, the prestigious fantasy prize has been won by writers including Michael Moorcock, Gene … Continue reading “‘Racist HP Lovecraft’s name should be dropped’ from World Fantasy awards”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[422,3],"tags":[10047,65,157,10048],"class_list":["post-16075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-news","tag-hp-lovecraft","tag-race","tag-racism","tag-world-fantasy-award"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16082,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16075\/revisions\/16082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}