Helen Phillips' novel Hum, which imagines a future where artificial intelligence dominates and nature is a luxury, has won the Climate Fiction Prize. The book follows May, a woman who loses her job to a humanoid robot and undergoes an experimental injection to alter her face, using the payment to take her family to the city's last remaining green space.
The £10,000 prize, now in its second year, was awarded by a panel including writer Kit de Waal and climate scientist Friederike Otto. De Waal described the novel as exploring the 'Disneyfication of nature', while Otto noted it 'tackles the central reason that nothing is done about the climate crisis – privilege'.
Phillips was inspired to write the book after noticing targeted advertising based on her online activity. 'That eerie feeling stuck with me,' she said, 'and I started to think about what worst-case scenarios might arise from surveillance by an algorithm.'
The shortlist also included works by Madeleine Thien, Robbie Arnott, Keshava Guha, Susanna Kwan, and Maria Reva. Lucy Stone, CEO of Climate Spring which funds the prize, said Hum 'helps us connect with what really matters and stops us from sleepwalking into an inevitable dystopia'.
