Explore the shortlist

DUSK

By Robbie Arnott

An explosive novel of the wild, and the lengths humans will go to control it.

With escaped Puma, Dusk, roaming the distant highlands, outcast twins Iris and Floyd decide to join the hunt.

As they journey up into the wild, haunted country, they discover there’s far more to the land and people than they imagined. Forced to make an uneasy alliance with a fellow tracker, the twins’ lifelong bond is put at risk. And as the trio close in on their prey, it becomes clear where the true danger lies . . .

‘A climate Western about two outcasts siblings, a displaced animal-world and a scorched environment which explores our relationship to nature, and is filled to the brim with jeopardy.’ – Arifa Akbar, Climate Fiction Prize Chair

Robbie Arnott is the author of Limberlost, The Rain Heron and Flames. He has been named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist, shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and shortlisted twice for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Dusk is his fourth novel. He lives with his family in Hobart, Tasmania.

THE TIGER’S SHARE

By Keshava Guha

The fiercest wars are fought between siblings.

Tara, is everything her younger brother isn’t: dedicated, independent, thriving. When their father retires, he summons them to a meeting. But what he has to say threatens to tear the family apart.

Tara’s friend Lila has it all. But when Lila’s father dies unexpectedly, her brother wastes no time in claiming what he thinks is his.

Against a backdrop of ecological collapse and political unrest, together, Tara and Lila are forced to confront the challenge that their ambition poses to patriarchal Delhi society.

‘The Tiger’s Share deftly uses a polluted Delhi backdrop as a metaphor for a toxic relationship between siblings caused, interestingly, by a parent’s conscience over climate crisis..‘ – Simon Savidge, Climate Fiction Prize judge

Keshava Guha was born in Delhi and raised in Bangalore. He studied history and politics at Harvard, and writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. He writes regularly on politics, literature and sport for a host of publications.

AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY

By Susanna Kwan

Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. But when the health of Mia – a prickly, elderly lady Bo cares for – deteriorates, Bo determines to honour their disappearing world and the woman who brought her back to it, a project that teaches her the lessons that matter most: how to care, how to be present, how to commemorate a life and a place, soon to be lost forever.

‘Susanna Kwan writes climate change into the grain of ordinary life, allowing us into the intimate world of loss, love and attention..’ – Kit de Waal, Climate Fiction Prize judge

Susanna Kwan is an artist and writer from San Francisco. Her work has been supported by fellowships from Kundiman, Storyknife, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, The Writers’ Grotto, and Vanderbilt University. Awake in the Floating City is her first novel.

HUM

By Helen Phillips

In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance.

A novel that delves into the complexities of marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities.

‘Beautiful and intimate, this novel about the difficulties of love and care in a world which is increasingly mediated by technology is one I’ve found myself thinking about long after finishing the last page.’ – Jessie Greengrass, Climate Fiction Prize judge

Helen Phillips is the author of six books, including The Need, a National Book Award nominee and a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and the Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction. She is an associate professor at Brooklyn College

ENDLING

By Maria Reva

Yeva is a maverick Ukrainian scientist, trying and failing to breed rare snails while dating plenty of men – not for love, but to fund her work.

Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism.

So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species.

‘Against a backdrop of war, crushing inequality, and families in danger, this powerful book makes the unlikely case for saving a snail, and reminds us that giving up is not only wrong, but profoundly boring.’ – Friederike Otto, Climate Fiction Prize judge

Maria Reva was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. Her story collection, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, won the Kobzar Book Award and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Fiction Prize. Her writing has been featured in ‘The Atlantic’, ‘Granta’, ‘The Best American Short Stories’, and elsewhere. She also works as an opera librettist.

THE BOOK OF RECORDS

By Madeleine Thien

Why did people, who lived so briefly in this universe, contain so much time?

Lina and her ailing father have taken refuge at an enclave called the Sea, a staging post between migrations.

In this mysterious building, pasts and futures collide as Lina comes to understand the role of fate in history in a book which explores our search for home and the place of faith and humanity in our world.

‘A dreamlike, powerful book about group of stranded refugees turning to storytelling, binding together their own past, history and stories of refugees of the past to find hope for them, and us, the reader.’ – Friederike Otto, Climate Fiction Prize judge

Madeleine Thien‘s novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize, and won the Governor General’s Award, among other honours. She is also the author of the story collection Simple Recipes (2001) and the novels Certainty (2006) and Dogs at the Perimeter (2012), which was shortlisted for Berlin’s 2014 International Literature Award and won the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2015 LiBeraturpreis. Her books and stories have been translated into twenty-five languages. She lives in Montreal, Canada.