N.K. Jemisin has been named a SFWA Grandmaster
The 42nd Damon Knight Memorial Grandmaster
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award: fantasy author N.K. Jemisin.
The award is one of the genre's highest honors and recognizes a lifetime of achievement within the SF/F world. It was first awarded 50 years ago in 1975, to Robert Heinlein. Its ranks include some of the genre's best-known authors, ranging from Isaac Asimov to Arthur C. Clarke to C.J. Cherryh to Robin McKinley and Nicola Griffith.
In a statement, SFWA President Kate Ristau said:
"We don’t write in a vacuum. We write in a world of complexity and trauma. Jemisin helps us hold a mirror up to our darkest fears and our deepest desires. We want to live in a better world, but if we don’t, what stories will we tell? How will we confront history and our possible futures with authenticity and possibility? Jemisin shows us that storytelling is not just an escape—it’s a powerful tool for engagement in our own reality."
The award is well-deserved for Jemisin, who published her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms in 2010, and has earned considerable acclaim in the years since. In 2015, she published her acclaimed novel The Fifth Season, set on a planet with periodic apocalyptic events that forces humanity to bunker down in sheltered communities. It, and its sequels The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky earned Jemisin considerable acclaim in the form of three successive Hugo Awards for Best Novel in 2016, 2017, and 2018, the first time that had ever happened.
Since then, she's published a handful of other books: a collection of her short fiction, How Long 'til Black Future Month?, a Mass Effect novel, Andromeda Initiation, Far Sector (a run of Green Lantern comics), and The City We Became and The World We Make.
Andrew Liptak
In 2020, she was named a MacArthur Fellow, an exceedingly great honor for those working in the creative fields, and held by very few authors working in the speculative fiction field (notable prior winners include Octavia Butler, Karen Russell, and Kelly Link).
This has always felt like a "when, not if" situation to me: I've wondered before when Jemisin would get the title, given her monumental success in the field. It's a testament to the work that she's produced since she began writing, and I hope that it'll stand as an encouragement and model for others to be principled and daring in their storytelling.
The award will be bestowed upon Jemisin at next year's Nebula Conference, which will be held in Chicago in June. Registration is now open.