Editorial: The World Fantasy Award
Judges have been announced for the World Fantasy Award 2012. I’ve written about the WFA in 2009 – Where is the World in the World Fantasy Award? – so I won’t reiterate what I wrote there, only note that, like last year, the jury has one token non-Anglophone member. Last year, it was Sacha Mamczak from Germany. This year it is Jacques Post from the Netherlands. In 2009 it was Jürgen Snoeren, also from the Netherlands. In 2008, there wasn’t even a token – it was 4 Americans and an Australian.
This is notable particularly in view of last year’s international line-up of nominees, culminating in the first black woman ever given a WFA (Nnedi Okorafor for best novel), and seeing several international figures – including French publishers Stéphane Marsan and Alain Névant, of Bragelonne in France, Karen Lord from Barbados, and Charles Tan from the Philippines – nominated in various categories (though it is worth noting none of them won).
I don’t want to rail at the award. I’ve argued for a more international jury in the past, but I am not the awards administrator and my influence is – surprise! – limited.
So this year, I want to try something different.
The judges for the WFA have to wade through an enormous amount of material. That that material is exclusively in the English language comes as no surprise, but still. I would like to see 2012 being truly representative of the best that international fantasy has to offer.
I would also like to see the Special Award (Professional and Non-Professional categories) being representative of the international scene.
We can help make this happen.
So here’s your mission – should you choose to accept it!
Tell us, in the comments, who you would like to see shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. Best Novel? Best Short Story? Special Award?
We’ll put together your recommendations into a list and post it. And let’s all hope for a year where the World Fantasy Award reflects that first word in its title.
Ready? Go!
[Note on criteria: this should be for works published during 2011]
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Token woman, too?
Ken Liu’s short fiction has been getting a lot of praise of late, though he’s mostly in online venues, I think, and I’m concerned about the reports on Twitter that WFA is requiring paper submissions.
The folks at Black Coat Press deserve a nod for he fine work they have been doing bringing French SF&F to the English-speaking market.
Edward Gauvin’s translations from French are also worth a nod.
And Gio Clairval’s translations for the VanderMeer projects are also impressive.
Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Mr Fox is excellent.
Off the top of my head:
S.L. Grey’s THE MALL (2011, right?)
John Ajvide Lindqvist had 2 novels in 2011?
Ken Liu deserves an award for the amazing work he’s been doing translating Chinese SF stories.
Cheryl: I think that’s always been WFA policy, in fairness.
The Fat Years by Chan KoonChung has received a lot of praise. I haven’t read it myself though.
Uh, I haven’t been reading a lot this year except for comfort stuff… What I can think of with minimal brainstorming:
-ditto Ken Liu, both for his short fiction and his translation efforts (and he’s translating a Chinese SF novel by Liu Cixin, too, if I’m following correctly). In short fiction, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s “Return to Paraiso” (in Realms of Fantasy) is very good, though it appeared at a bad time for visibility.
-J. Damask’s Obsidian Moon, Obsidian Eye is good non-Anglo centric urban fantasy, the kind we very badly need in the genre. I think the last volume of Pierre Pével’s Cardinal’s Blades trilogy (The Dragon Arcana) is out now?
A writer I have translated and published is Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas. She is Mexican and has two stories online (both translated and published by me): “Tloque Nahuaque” http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=15759 and “Ahuizotl” http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ahuizotl.pdf.
Silvia – if you do any other translations, please let these folks know: http://www.sfftawards.org/. They have closed nominations for works published in 2011 now, but the award rules do allow them to carry works over to the following year if they didn’t find out about them in time, so you might be OK with those two.
Thanks! I had no idea about that.
Seconding Mr. Fox and also The Fat Years; and since nobody has said it yet, I will: Osama by Lavie Tidhar.
Also, and at first I wasn’t sure (I had it as “good, but not Wind-Up Bird Chronicle great”), 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. It’s grown on me a bit in hindsight, though I still have some particular issues with it in both content and form.
Nalo Hopkinson won a WFA in 2003, surely she the fist black female winner?
No point in making an award more international if no-one remembers the winners anyway!