The Climate Fiction Prize

The Climate Fiction Prize

When was the last time you read a good climate book?

Better yet, when was the last time you read a piece of fiction that was as realistic about the climate crisis as it was inspiring? The latter can seem hard to come by, especially in a world which is already characterised by endless chaos and disaster, filled with doomsday-esque rhetoric and projections for the future.

As readers we might believe that measured climate fiction is few and far between, and that the literary landscape does not celebrate anything other than dystopia. These tropes can be a disservice to what we need in times of change. But not all hope is lost. Stories have the power to navigate us towards somewhere safer by illuminating alternate future paths. This is the underutilised power of storytelling.

Faced with disinformation, confusion and fear around the climate crisis, it’s understandable that we feel disempowered, stuck in fight or flight mode, however, reading the right novel can help us process and emotionally engage with difficult issues. This in turn can unlock paralysis and lead us to a place of action, where repair and hope can manifest.

In an effort to celebrate and acknowledge this, a group of people from the literary and climate worlds gathered together this June at Hay Festival, one of the UK’s leading book festivals, to launch a new book award, The Climate Fiction Prize. During the event, founder of Climate Spring and local resident, Lucy Stone, joined the prize judges to shed light on the growing number of bold, exciting, nuanced and timely climate storytelling that is emerging in fiction publishing (see reading list!). They were interested in original ways of exploring what the climate crisis means for us all - which does not mean the stories have to bang on about the science, or scare or guilt trip us, but narratives that show how society responds to the crisis; exploring the impact on families and relationships, accountability and justice, and visualising more sustainable societies.

‘The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence

— a task to which fiction is the best suited of all cultural forms’

Amitav Ghosh, novelist and winner of the Erasmus 2024 prize

As a society living through a period of deep transformation we are deserving of literary work that is a reflection of these times: from the sheer terror of what we are already witnessing and what this means for us to the stories of change and power rising from the ground up. Climate fiction is an opportunity to reveal the networks of

change that are growing in the face of adversity; like mycelial networks that connect plants and trees underground, they are often invisible but crucially create a system of support.

In essence, climate storytelling could instigate or reflect a shift in the way we think and act on climate change, reaching new audiences outside of the echo chamber, to take action in novel and exciting ways. I’m thinking here of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Flight Behaviour, which shows an unexpected heroine in rural, farming America, or The High House by Jessie Greengrass, where the protagonists prepare for an uncertain climate future and try to protect their families.

Only recently are we starting to see a growing demand for climate narratives in popular media, from movies like The End We Start From to television series such as ITV’s After the Flood. The latter was supported by Climate Spring, supporters of the Climate Fiction Prize, who are leading the field in this arena. Their goal is to grow climate led narratives across film, tv and novels, providing funding, advice and support to the growing interest by creatives to tell this story of how we respond to the climate and nature crisis.

Through the Climate Fiction prize, we encourage more people to read climate fiction, and encourage more writers to rise to the occasion, unlocking the potential to celebrate diverse climate storytelling, gather momentum and transform society for the better.

And if you don’t know where to start, start reading.

The winner of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize will be announced in Spring 2025.

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https://climatefictionprize.co.uk