Aliette de Bodard is Overdue for a Hugo Award Win

Aliette de Bodard at the 2024
Hugo Awards.
(Photo by Olav Rokne)

There are only 27 authors whose works have appeared on the prose-fiction Hugo Award ballot at least 10 times. It’s a list of some of the most recognizable and prolific names in the history of the genre: Heinlein, le Guin, Simak, Ellison, Bujold, Chiang.

It’s an achievement to pen even a single work of fiction that speaks to the Hugo voting public enough that it earns a spot on the ballot. The fact that each of these authors have done so on at least ten occasions speaks to the fact that they were important voices in science fiction and fantasy over a significant period of time.

Of this exclusive list of 27 authors, 25 of them have taken home the trophy on at least one occasion. The others are Michael A. Burstein, a terrific author of short fiction who largely stopped publishing new work about a decade ago, and Aliette de Bodard, who earned her 10th and 11th Hugo nods this summer in Glasgow.

Having yet again been a runner-up at Glasgow (losing Short Story to Naomi Kritzer and series to Ann Leckie), Aliette de Bodard now holds the distinction of being the person who has been a finalist for a fiction-category Hugo the most often without winning.

She has come close on numerous occasions.

In 2013, “Immersion” — her nuanced and insightful story about the folly of reducing culture to data — placed second to Ken Liu’s “Mono no Aware.”

In 2019, her novella The Tea Master and The Detective led the balloting during the nominations stage, but that was a year in which the Murderbot books were an unstoppable juggernaut. Aliette de Bodard’s Sherlock Holmes tribute fell short by about 300 votes on the final ballot, placing second to Artificial Condition by Martha Wells.

To us at least, it feels as if de Bodard was robbed in 2015 given that one of her absolute best works "The Breath of War" was prevented from getting on the short story Hugo ballot by the notorious Sad Puppies slate. No short story award was given that year, and damn it Aliette de Bodard probably should have won.

She’s placed fifth to Becky Chambers and fourth to Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s been a finalist in some incredibly strong shortlists. But to date, she’s never taken home the shiny chrome rocket ship. That’s something we think needs to change.

Now, we should mention that de Bodard has been recognized with other literary awards. She’s taken home awards from the BSFA, from the Nebulas, the Locus, the Writers of the Future, and the Ignytes. It would be difficult to argue that she isn’t already one of the genre’s most awarded authors. But the Hugo Awards have a special place for those of us in the Worldcon community. Not only is her work entirely deserving of a Hugo, she attends Worldcon and is a participant in panels, book signings, and other events. She’s a contributing member of the Worldcon community.

This year, de Bodard has two works that could be considered for a Hugo Award: a novel Navigational Entanglements, a novella In The Shadow of the Ship. (Her series “Universe of Xuya” cannot be renominated until 2026 because it was on the ballot in 2024.)

de Bodard's latest novella ranks
amongst her all-time best.
(Image via Subterranean Press)

The novella In the Shadow of the Ship hit shelves just last week. Set in her Universe of Xuya — a future timeline in which space has been conquered by Confucian galactic empires — In the Shadow of the Ship deals with toxic family relationships on board a horrific refugee ship, where children are sacrificed. The protagonist, Khuyên, is among de Bodard’s most memorable characters, having fled the ship on which she was raised only to return for a family funeral. She understands much of the problematic culture she was raised with, but also brings a reflective outsider’s perspective. Although this is a darker and moodier work than others in the Xuya series, de Bodard continues to explore similar themes of family tensions and mother-daughter relationships. It is on a short list of de Bodard’s best works.

The novel is Navigational Entanglements, which hit shelves this spring, is an action-fuelled political thriller about a neurodivergent navigator who has to hunt down a dangerous creature while dealing with fallout from the assassination of an imperial envoy. It seems a likely candidate for the Hugo shortlist.

It has been 15 years since Aliette de Bodard first made a splash in SFF literary circles when she was shortlisted for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (which we still feel she should have won). In the time since, she has continued to evolve as a writer and has become a master of her craft. It is astonishing that she does not have a Hugo Award yet, and it is an omission we hope will be rectified in short order.

Many Princes; One Crown

Which version of The Little Prince won the Hugo Award?

"A new translation of the
beloved classic."
(Image via Amazon.com)

Was it Katherine Woods’ classic 1943 translation? Was it the 1995 Irene Testot-Ferry translation? Or perhaps it was Richard Howard’s 2000 translation?

Since the initial publication of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's story in 1943, the book has been translated into English on at least seven different occasions, often with markedly different results.

If you’re an anglophone who is over the age of 30, or bought the book used, there’s every chance that you remember Woods’ relatively poetic and lyrical translation. A few might be most familiar with the direct and less florid Testot-Ferry version. Younger readers are likely to be more familiar with the plainspoken and colloquial Howard version of the text.

We argue here that the classic Woods version should be the one that is recognized as being worthy of the award, rather than one of the modern revisions. In particular, this is a Retro Hugo for 1944, and it is based on the work as it appeared in 1944 that votes should have been cast. The Hugo Awards page does specify the publisher, which would lead us to believe that it is indeed the Woods translation that is honoured.

That said, it is the 2000 version that is most readily available today, so a counter-argument could be made that a significant number of Hugo voters at Worldcon 77 were likely to have based their decision on the later version.

The differences between the translations are not insignificant.

Katherine Woods also
translated works such
as Emile Zola's The
Masterpiece, and was
the head of literature
with UNESCO.
(Image via Amazon.com)

As an example, the original Woods translation offers us the following: “It was from words dropped by chance that, little by little, everything was revealed to me.”

The 1995 Testot-Ferry translation flattens that same sentence to “It was thanks to the odd word, here and there, that everything was revealed to me.”

And in 2000, Howard renders this same sentence as “It was things he said quite at random that, bit by bit, explained everything.”

It is clear that the newer translation does not capture the gentleness of the original French phrase: “Ce sont des mots prononcés par hasard qui, peu à peu, m'ont tout révélé.”

The structural changes are mirrored by a narrowing of the vocabulary in the work: ‘a primordial forest’ becomes ‘a jungle.’ A ‘tippler’ becomes a ‘drunkard.’ A ‘spring of fresh water’ becomes a ‘fountain.’

By-and-large, the publishing industry is more sensitive to the work of translators today; today they often they get cover credit that they might not have in the past. For example, in 2014, Ken Liu was recognized on the cover of The Three-Body Problem and was consequently also recognized at the Hugo Awards for his translation work. 

But the case of The Little Prince is more comparable to that of the first translated work to appear on a Hugo Ballot: the 1963 novel Sylva, which was written by French war hero Vercors (A.K.A. Jean Bruller). No translator is mentioned on the dust jacket of the book. And until this summer, when the record was updated at our request, the official Hugo Awards site did not list the name of the translator, Rita Barisse. The Wikipedia entry for the Hugo Awards, and several other publications continue to neglect Barisse’s contribution to the work.

It is important when giving an award to a translated work to recognize the person — or people

The Little Prince has been translated into
more than 250 languages, and is the most
translated non-religious text on Earth.
(Image via Nortsider) 

— who worked on bridging the linguistic divide, and who interpreted and attempted to capture the tone and rhythm of the original. The translation of foreign works into English is a subtle and often misunderstood art. It is also one that all-too-often has gone unacknowledged.

Both Sylva and The Little Prince were published without translation credit on the cover, so when they were discussed, nominated, and voted on, there was little information provided to voters about whose work went into turning French prose into English.

While Sylva’s translator is easy to identify, and to retroactively credit, The Little Prince is a little less clear. But recognition, and attribution, must be offered.

It is Katherine Woods’ version that helped make the work so successful in North American English markets, it is her work that was available in 1944, and it should be recognized that she is the translator who contributed to the award-winning version of the work.

The WSFS should adopt a consistent practice of acknowledging translators in all instances, both for contemporaneous Hugos and for Retro Hugos.