African-diasporic writers Jordan Ifueko and Sofia Samatar are finalists for the Hugo Awards!

The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953 and presented annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”), which is also responsible for administering them.

Nigerian-American author Jordan Ifueko’s The Maid and the Crocodile (Amulet) is among the six finalists out of 175 nominees for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Book.

Set in the magical West African world of Raybearer, The Maid and the Crocodile features Small Sade, a Curse Eater who can altering people’s fates through cleaning. She is looking for a job as a maid in the city of Oluwan; however, she accidentally binds herself to a god called The Crocodile, who supposedly eats young girls. Small Sade ignores him and begins work at an inn, hoping to avoid the The Crocodile and her secrets getting revealed.

Jordan Ifueko is the New York Times bestselling author of the Raybearer series. She is a Nebula Award, Ignyte Award, Audie Award, and Hugo Lodestar finalist, and has been featured in People magazine, NPR Best Books, NPR Pop Culture Hour, and ALA Top Ten.

Also a finalist is Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain (Tordotcom), one of six nominees out of 209 titles, for Best Novella.

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is a mystical, revolutionary space adventure following an unnamed protagonist, referred to only as “the boy,” whose whole world changes when he is yanked from his menial job in the bowels of a mining starship and given an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite. Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as “the professor,” a weary idealist who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn.

Sofia Samatar is an American author of Somali descent, whose first novel, A Stranger in Olondria, won the 2014 William L. Crawford Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and was included in Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.

Voting on the final ballot will open during April 2025. The 2025 Hugo Awards, the Lodestar Award, and the Astounding Award will be presented on Saturday evening, August 16, 2025, at a formal ceremony at Seattle Worldcon 2025.

Congratulations to Jordan Ifueko and Sofia Samatar!