March 19, 2025, 12:13pm

The Climate Fiction Prize, a new award that means to acknowledge “the best novel-length work of fiction published in the UK engaging with the climate crisis,” has announced its first shortlist.

A panel of industry judges assembled a “genre and global-spanning” list of finalists for the prize’s inaugural year. Titles were selected on the basis of literary merit and pertinent themes—though the brief is broad.

Women authors took the cake on the all femme shortlist. But genre-wise, the jury is split. Two contemporary lit-fiction novels and two works of “speculative fiction” were recognized. We have a time traveling romance, two dystopian futures, a close look at sisterhood in modern-day Nigeria, and a Booker Prize winning space chronicle. But all titles explore the climate crisis through the lens of tightly bound or bonded communities.

Here are the finalists.

Abi Daré, And So I Roar

Samantha Harvey, Orbital

Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

Roz Dineen, Briefly Very Beautiful 

Téa Obreht, The Morningside

The winner, to be announced at a London ceremony later this May, will receive 10,000 pounds. The prize is supported by “global climate storytelling organization,” Climate Spring.

Congratulations to the finalists!

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