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The Inaugural Climate Fiction Prize 2025

Abi Daré in conversation with Owen Sheers

Hay Festival 2025, 

Abi Daré is the winner of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize with her novel, And So I Roar, follows fourteen-year-old Adunni from her life in Lagos, where she is excited to finally enrol in school, to her home village when she is summoned to face charges for events that are in fact caused by climate change.

The Climate Fiction Prize, in its inaugural year, celebrates the best fiction engaging with the climate crisis, offering readers new responses and ways of exploring the biggest story of our time.

The winner of the first ever Climate Fiction Prize will speak to novelist, poet and playwright Owen Sheers. They’ll examine what we mean by ‘climate fiction’ as an expanding literary space, the power of fiction in tackling the crisis, and the vital role the wider arts play in its solution. They’ll explore the ways in which fiction enables society to comprehend the impacts of climate change and manifest responses to combat apathy and doomism.

The short list is:

The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley

And So I Roar, by Abi Daré

Briefly Very Beautiful, by Roz Dineen

Orbital, by Samantha Harvey

The Morningside, by Téa Obreht

The Inaugural Climate Fiction Prize 2025