Past winners

The 2026 winner of the Climate Fiction Prize was HUM by Helen Phillips (Atlantic Books). Set in a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Forced to become a guinea pig for experiments to alter her face to avoid surveillance, she finds solace, at great cost, in one of the last remaining botanical gardens. Phillips received the award at a ceremony in London, and becomes the second winner of the prize.

“Thank you to everyone here, and everywhere, who believes that narratives of all kinds can help us face our future in a world increasingly shaped by climate change. That is why this prize is so important, and why it is the honour of a lifetime to receive it.”  
– Helen Phillips, speaking after winning the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize

Hum was chosen from the six shortlisted books selected by the judging panel in March.

  • The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (Granta Books)
  • Dusk by Robbie Arnott (Chatto & Windus, Vintage)
  • The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha (John Murray Press, Hachette) 
  • Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan (Simon & Schuster)
  • Hum by Helen Phillips (Atlantic Books)
  • Endling by Maria Reva (Virago, Little, Brown)

Read more about the 2026 shortlist here.

2025 Prize

The inaugural Climate Fiction Prize was won by Abi Daré for And so I Roar (Sceptre, Hodder). The novel follows fourteen-year-old Adunni from her life in Lagos, where she is excited to finally enrol in school, to her home village where she is summoned to face charges for events that are in fact caused by climate change. The Prize, worth £10,000, was awarded at a ceremony in London, on 14 May 2025.

“This prize matters because fiction lets us bear witness and makes the abstract real. It gets under your skin and moves the heart in a way data alone cannot“
– Abi Daré, speaking after winning the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize

Read Abi’s acceptance speech in full here.

Abi’s novel was chosen by a panel of five judges – Madeline Bunting (chair), Nicola Chester, Andy Fryers, David Lindo and Tori Tsui – from a shortlist of five novels:

  • The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre, Hodder)
  • And So I Roar by Abi Daré (Sceptre, Hodder)
  • Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen (Bloomsbury Circus)
  • Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, PRH)
  • The Morningside by Téa Obreht (W&N, Orion)

More information about the 2025 shortlist can be found here.