Nigerian writer Abi Daré has won the inaugural Climate fiction prize for her novel And So I Roar, the follow-up to her bestselling debut The Girl with the Louding Voice. Daré was announced as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a ceremony in London on Wednesday evening.
“I am still slightly stunned but so honoured and thrilled,” she said. “As a Black British-Nigerian woman, receiving this prize is a reminder that we do not need to wait for permission to step into global conversations or to contort our stories to fit a certain lens.”
The Girl with the Louding Voice, published in 2020, tells the story of Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who is forced to marry an older man before being sold into domestic servitude. And So I Roar begins with Adunni being excited to enrol in school in Lagos before being summoned back to her home village, Ikati.
Daré said that she did not start the book intending to write about the climate crisis. “I wanted to explore the lives of rural women and girls navigating inequality, silence and survival. But the deeper I went, the more I saw how environmental collapse bleeds into everything, how in many parts of rural Africa, climate injustice is more felt than understood,” she said.
Author and judging chair Madeleine Bunting described And So I Roar as “a book of real energy and passion which both horrifies and entertains”, and a “story of how the climate crisis can provoke social crisis, where often women and children are the victims.” She added: “Despite the tragedy, Daré holds faith in the strength of individuals and relationships and her hopefulness leaves us inspired.”
Daré, who was born in Lagos and now lives in Essex, set up The Louding Voice Foundation in 2023 to provide educational scholarships to women and girls in Nigeria. “I hope this moment encourages more writers, especially those from under-represented backgrounds, to explore the links between environment, identity and justice,” she said.
