Right at a time when many of us are getting serious about our summer reading lists, the winner of The 2026 Climate Fiction Prize has been announced in London. The author who will collect the £10,000 prize is Helen Phillips; her late-2024 novel, Hum, tells the story of a woman whose life is warped by AI in “a near-future world addled by climate change.”
This is only the second time the Climate Fiction Prize has been awarded. (Readers can find Yale Climate Connections’ account of the first prize, awarded in 2025, here.) Created and supported by the UK-based global climate storytelling organization Climate Spring, the award celebrates full-length English-language novels that engage climate change as a central theme. Authors of any nationality are eligible, but the book must be published by an established imprint in the UK. Helen Phillips is an American; she is an associate professor at Brooklyn College.
Selecting the 2026 winner was a seven-month process. Publishers submitted works for consideration last October and November. A long list of 12 titles was announced in February; a short list of six titles was announced in March.
So that readers can take full advantage of the prize judges’ work, this bookshelf provides covers, links, and edited blurbs for the American editions of all 12 of the titles initially selected.
