Best climate fiction reads 2024: Meet the finalists of a new UK prize

The longlist for the first ever Climate Fiction Prize has been revealed and all nine books are by women.

The prize will be awarded to a work of fiction that puts the climate crisis front and centre with the head judge saying the competition aims to “reach hearts and minds”. 

The list includes the 2024 Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey for her work of climate fiction, ‘Orbital’. The longlist also features two debut authors. 

This new literary prize was first announced at the esteemed Hay Festival of Literature & Arts last June and is worth £10,000 (€12,058).

Why climate fiction deserves its own literary award

“My fellow judges and I are truly delighted with this first ever longlist for the Climate Fiction Prize,” says Madeliene Bunting, the award-winning British writer who is chairing the judging panel. 

“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.”

The judging panel also includes the British nature writer Nicola Chester and the wildlife writer and broadcaster David Lindo, better known as ‘The Urban Birder’.

But it also includes the young climate justice activist Tori Tsui, who published her debut novel about eco-anxiety, ‘It’s Not Just You’ in 2023, and the Hay Festival’s sustainability director, Andy Fryers.

There are nine novels on the Climate Fiction Prize longlist

This prize will not only celebrate authors who are already writing excellent climate fiction but may encourage more writers to turn their hand to the topic. 

As the longlist for the 2024 prize shows – climate fiction fits into all genres and locations: 

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

The ‘haunting and heart-wrenching’ novel, ‘Private Rites’ published by Harper Collins and 4th Estate, is set to unsettle readers with its apocalyptic themes. 

After the death of their estranged father, three sisters, Isla, Irene and Agnes, reconnect and try to navigate their queer love and faith while the world is ending due to constant rain. This is a brutal yet still witty book about emotional abuse, mental health, and honesty.  

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

From debut author Kaliane Bradley and published by Sceptre and Hodder comes ‘The Ministry of Time’, a novel that is a time travel romance, a spy thriller, and a workplace comedy, according to Good Reads. 

Set in the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a job by a mysterious new government ministry that gathers ‘expats’ from history. 

The servant’s job is to support a commander in navigating modern life. (This fictitious commander was on the real 1845 doomed expedition to the Arctic led by Sir John Franklin.) The reason why all becomes clear.

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And So I Roar by Abi Daré

From ‘New York Times’ bestselling author Abi Daré comes a witty, powerful novel about Adunni, a ‘plucky’ Lagos-based 14-year-old who has escaped her rural village and made friends with a woman called Tia, who is on her own self-discovery journey.

Excited as she is finally enrolled in school, Adunni is then summoned back to her home village. What’s to come is an adventure to ensure all the young girls of her village can claim the bright futures they deserve.  

‘And So I Roar’ is published by Sceptre and Hodder & Stoughton.

Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen

What do you do when the world is on fire? With her husband away to serve as a medic in a war overseas, Cass is left raising small children in a city that’s been rocked by global catastrophe. The only thing Cass can do is leave to seek out somewhere safer – but not all sanctuaries are what they seem. 

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‘Briefly Very Beautiful’ is the debut novel of writer Roz Dineen, published by Bloomsbury Circus.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

‘Orbital’, the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize, is a space-themed adventure in which six astronauts from around the world are on an International Space Station conducting scientific experiments to test the human body. 

When bad news from home comes, this soon leads the team to observe planet Earth and ask vital questions like never before: ‘What is life without Earth? What is Earth without humanity?’ 

Published by Jonathan Cape, PRH, Harvey’s novel was described as ‘a slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas’ by the UK newspaper The Guardian.

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This was the only ever Booker winner novel to be set in outer space – and Harvey is the first woman to have won the Booker Prize in five years. 

The Morningside by Téa Obreht

From the ‘New York Times’ bestselling author of ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ and ‘Inland,’ comes this novel about refugees forced to relocate after environmental disasters. 

The novel centres on a mother and daughter who move to Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower where the young girl’s aunt lives and tells folk tales of her homeland. 

Published by W&N and Orion, this is a story that, amid sadness and impoverishment, holds hope and humour. 

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Water Baby by Chioma Okereke

‘Water Baby’ is a coming-of-age story published by Quercus. Baby, a 19-year-old girl, lives in a floating slum off mainland Lagos, Nigeria. 

With few opportunities, she leaps at the chance to broaden the visibility of her community by joining a new drone-mapping project. 

This soon propels Baby to the world stage – and she has to ask if life beyond the lagoon is everything she’s dreamed of – or if what she wants has always been right in front of her.

Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright

‘Praiseworthy’, published by And Other Stories, has already received numerous awards since it was published in late 2023 and is a satirical book based in a small Aboriginal town. 

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A haze cloud heralds both ecological disaster and a gathering of the ancestors as protagonist Cause Man Steel chases a mad vision: A national ‘carbon neutral’ transport scheme using feral donkeys that will guarantee his people’s independence. In doing so, however, he desecrates traditional land. 

This explosive book packs a punch and is an outraged cry against oppression during the ‘end of days’.

“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,” adds Bunting.

The Climate Fiction Prize is supported by Climate Spring, a global organisation that works with the screen industries to create film and TV content that shifts climate narratives and reaches mainstream audiences.

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So it’s possible that some of these works of fiction could also soon reach the screen.

The winner will be announced at a ceremony on 19 March 2025.