Last month I read about the controversy surrounding the statuette of H.P. Lovecraft given to winners of the World Fantasy Awards. At issue is racism in Lovecraft’s writings.
Nnedi Okorafor, who won the 2011 best novel World Fantasy honors, wrote about the racism in a blog post back in December 2011. You have to admit that the Lovecraft poem that she reprints to illustrate the point is particularly offensive. (Yes, I realize that literature is reflective of the era in which it was created. But there is a limit to what is acceptable today.)
Since then, author Daniel José Older has started an online petition asking that Lovecraft’s visage be replaced with that of the late author Octavia Butler.
The controversy went a bit more mainstream over the weekend when Arun Rath, a host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” talked with Salon‘s Laura Miller about the issue. Listen to the discussion below:
I can’t agree with HPL regarding his prejudices, but give me a break. The World Fantasy Award was created because of the body of work he did. What next, do they want to dig him up and scatter his bones? Also replacing The Howard with Octavia Butler is only because she was Black not because of her body of work which if I remember correctly was in the Science Fiction genre. If she were still alive I have a feeling she would not want to be used in such a manner.
Yes, Octavia Butler seems an odd choice because of her SF rather than fantasy background.
Some folks have proposed not using ANYBODY’s face on the award. I liked one suggestion I read recently: a sea monster. They’re (a) unquestionably fantastic, (b) a near-universal symbol, familiar from all ages and many, many cultures, and (c) completely inoffensive to everybody, unless maybe a sea monster ate your great-grandfather.