Author Nalo Hopkinson has been named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
The SFWA honored Hopkinson with the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master Award “for her contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy,” the organization announced in a news release. Hopkinson, 59, is the youngest author to receive the honor.
Hopkinson made her literary debut in 1998 with the novel Brown Girl in the Ring, a dystopian, magic-realist book set in Toronto. A reviewer for Kirkus called the book “a splendid if often gruesome debut, superbly plotted.”
Her other books have included Skin Folk, The Salt Roads, and Sister Mine.
“I have loved Nalo Hopkinson’s work since 1999 when I discovered her through the short story ‘Precious’ in a Datlow/Windling anthology Silver Birch, Blood Moon,” said SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal. “Naming Nalo as Grand Master recognizes not only her phenomenal writing but also her work as an educator who has shaped so many of the rising stars of modern SFF.”
The SFWA’s Damon Knight Grand Master Award, named after the organization’s founder, was first awarded in 1975, to Robert A. Heinlein. Past recipients have included Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, and C.J. Cherryh.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
