Climate fiction prize announces finalists including Madeleine Thien and Robbie Arnott

The authors of The Book of Records and Dusk join Keshava Guha, Susanna Kwan, Maria Reva and Helen Phillips on the shortlist for the £10,000 prize Madeleine Thien and Robbie Arnott are among the writers shortlisted for this year’s £10,000 Climate fiction prize. Now in its second year, the prize celebrates novels that engage with the climate crisis through imaginative storytelling. This year’s shortlist spans a wide range of styles, from speculative fiction to reimagined myth. Thien’s The Book of Records follows a girl who escapes with her father from flooding in a near-future China, and arrives at a large migrant compound called the Sea. The book traces the human costs of the climate crisis and social injustice, weaving personal and historical journeys across generations in what Guardian reviewer Xan Brooks called a “rich and beautiful novel”. Robbie Arnott was shortlisted for Dusk, about twins who join the hunt for a puma in the Tasmanian wilderness, described in a Guardian review by James Bradley as a “starkly beautiful and deeply felt” novel. Also in contention for the award is The Tiger’s Share, the second novel by Indian author Keshava Guha, a state-of-the-nation tale of siblin