Inaugural Climate Fiction Prize longlist announced

The longlist for the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize has been announced today (20th November). The new literary prize rewards the best novel-length work of fiction published in the UK engaging with the climate crisis, and was first announced at the Hay Festival in June 2024.

The first longlist has nine novels on it, including Booker Prize winner Orbital (Jonathan Cape) by Samantha Harvey and features all female authors. The list also includes two debut novelists, Roz Dineen and Kaliane Bradley.

The Climate Fiction Prize 2024 longlist:

• Private Rites by Julia Armfield (Harper Collins, 4th Estate)
• 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)
• Water Baby by Chioma Okereke (Quercus)
• The Mars House by Natasha Pulley (Gollancz, Orion)
• Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (And Other Stories)

The 2024 prizes judges are writer Madeleine Bunting (chair); climate justice activist and writer Tori Tsui, broadcaster and writer David Lindo aka the ‘Urban Birder’, non-fiction author Nicola Chester (On Gallows  Down, shortlisted for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize) and Andy Fryers, Hay Festival’s sustainability director.

Bunting said: “My fellow judges and I are truly delighted with this first ever longlist for the Climate Fiction Prize. With the climate crisis ever more urgent, this globe-spanning list offers a unique collection of narratives, styles and genres, exploring the pre-eminent struggle of our time. We are as proud as we are hopeful that anyone and everyone might find among these nine titles a book that stays with them long after the reading.”

Director of the Climate Fiction Prize, Rose Goddard said: “I’m so inspired by this wonderful longlist, the first of its kind and an indication of the stellar array of novels being written in the climate fiction space. WIth the new Climate Fiction Prize, our aim is to reach hearts and minds on the topic of the climate crisis and show that stories, and the novel form in particular, can engage and captivate us like nothing else can. These nine books do just that and I’d like to thank our incredible judges for this vital, timely selection.”

The prize, supported by Climate Spring, is worth £10,000 and will be awarded to a single winner at a ceremony in 2025. The shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 19th March.