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I admit that I'm not versed in sci-fi book award culture war. But In your links there's a bunch of complaints that Huang's 'Babel' isn't listed. Babel is basically a 'British Empire Bad' story that fits well with Chinese ideology about the Century of Humiliation, isn't it? Why would that suddenly not be listed, why would the Party have a problem with it?
Lots of things are banned in China but they usually ban individualist or anti-state novels or there's some kind of internal rivalry between authors (RIP Reverend Insanity).
I don't know enough about how Chinese censorship works to venture an educated guess, but when reading R. F. Kuang's wikipedia page the following jumped out at me.
After some further googling I came across the following information that may also have contributed. Her Poppy War series protagonist, Rin, is apparently heavily inspired by Mao, and is deliberately an unlikeable protagonist, as well as being an opium addict. The CCP censors may have been unhappy with this, given that The Poppy War has not been officially translated into one of the various Chinese dialects. It could simply be that she was persona non grata already, and Babel was summarily dismissed for the author's previous WrongThink.
Ah, that would make a lot of sense. I heard that you're not even allowed to mention Mao by name or even with a pseudonym in Chinese fiction, it's a huge faux pas. Same with current leaders.
I happened to be in China for work last summer during the national holiday -- anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic -- and to my surprise there was not a single mention of Mao, or any other specific figure, neither by name nor by image. The only words plastered everywhere were a thoroughly innocuous "I love China". His face is still on the money, of course, but physical cash is being phased out fairly quickly.
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You can buy the book in China though, just not in Chinese: http://product.m.dangdang.com/product.php?pid=11353905286&host=product.dangdang.com
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