On This Day in History: August 19

NK Jemisin wins the Hugo three years in a row

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The pinnacle of achievement for a science fiction or fantasy author is to win the Hugo Award for best novel. On August 19, 2018, for the first time ever, an author won that accolade three years in a row, then experienced brutal harassment from a toxic fan base that could not handle the fact that she is a Black woman.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: August 19, 2018--

Science fiction is my favorite genre; I’ve been a fan for over 40 years. So when I heard about N.K. Jemisin winning the Hugo three years in a row for her Broken Earth trilogy, I had to check it out. She deserved those awards. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before. If you’re a fan of SF, and even if you’re not, check out the books. They’re amazing and are being adapted for the big screen. But despite the works standing on their own merits, some douche-tubas couldn’t handle a Black woman being so successful. Guess what color and gender most of her critics are.

The three books in the trilogy are The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. The attacks didn’t just begin after winning the third Hugo. Detractors had been at her from early on, saying her first and second wins were the result of “identity politics” as opposed to merit. Garbage human far-right fucknuckle Theodore Beale, who writes under the name “Vox Day” and was a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, referred to Jemisin as “half-savage” and “illiterate” back in 2013, and said Black people—“a society of NK Jemisins”—aren’t “capable of building an advanced civilization.” Except Beale is a white supremacist hack and Jemisin won a McArthur Genius Grant in 2020.

During her 2018 acceptance speech for her third Hugo, Jemisin said she wrote the trilogy to reveal the struggle of “what it takes to live, let alone thrive, in a world that seems determined to break you—a world of people who constantly question your competence, your relevance, your very existence.” Broken Earth was not her first trilogy. Born in 1972 and becoming a counseling psychologist with a Master of Education, N.K. Jemisin’s earlier Inheritance Trilogyalso received critical acclaim (I’ve read those as well—they’re great).

But it’s important to note the hostility to her victory isn’t representative of the genre. The Hugos are voted on independently by members of the World Science Fiction Convention. It wasn’t a committee that said hey we should give it to the Black lady because it will make us look woke n’ shit. The people spoke. But there is a portion of the science fiction fan base that has been infiltrated by the far right. Whenever there are moves made toward greater inclusivity and diversity in any group, there are bigoted ass flaps ready to shriek “I think fucking not!” See: Gamergate.

While the genre is largely progressive, the hate still flows. For that reason, Jemisin put in her Twitter bio “I use robust autoblockers due to harassment. They catch some friendlies.”

Photo credit Laura Hanifin, 2015. 

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