The Climate Question · BBC World Service

What makes a good climate novel?

·23 min·2 clips

Abhi Dari explains how a farmer's story about women being blamed for drought inspired her climate novel.

1. The Climate Question from the BBC World Service discusses whether fiction can fight climate fatigue, anchored by the inauguration of the first-ever Climate Fiction Prize in the UK. 2. Host Greya Jackson is joined by Abhi Dari, author of the prize-winning novel 'And So I Roar,' and Madeleine Bunting, chair of the prize judges and journalist who covered development issues. 3. The episode's core question is whether climate fiction can reach audiences who are not already climate-engaged, and whether a dedicated prize can elevate the genre beyond its perceived bleakness. 4. 'And So I Roar' is the follow-on to Dari's first novel 'The Girl with the Loudon Voice'; both follow Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl seeking an education, and her educated friend Tia, an environmental activist. 5. The novel is set partly in Lagos and partly in the fictional rural village of Ikati; Dari grew up in Lagos and has lived in the UK for 25 years, giving her a view of climate awareness across both contexts. 6. Dari describes Nigeria as having two extremes: educated urbanites who understand climate change and can fight for it, and rural communities with limited education where people prefer cultural explanations over scientific ones. 7. Bunting cites a New York Public Library event that concluded climate fiction isn't great yet, but argues the genre is breaking free of bleak and dystopian constraints. 8. Bunting draws a direct parallel to the Women's Prize, which faced the same question — why a dedicated prize? — and went on to elevate women's writing significantly over 30 years. 9. All five authors on the shortlist were women; Bunting suggests this reflects women's emotional proximity to their children's futures and the climate crisis as a motherhood issue. 10. Dari confirms the gender skew, describing the novel as fundamentally about the relationship between mothers and children and how climate change threatens that bond. 11. Dari recounts a research interview in which a farmer whose potato crop had been destroyed by drought confirmed unprompted that women in his community were being blamed — the exact theme she had independently built into the plot. 12. Dari reads an excerpt from page 82 of the novel in Adunni's voice, describing woodcutters felling iroko, mangani, shear nut, mango, palm, cashew, and neem trees across forests in Kere, Goma, and Ikati. 13. Bunting explains the judges prioritised freshness of voice, hopefulness, and plot twists that allowed readers to think about climate in an unexpected way; she describes Dari's language as having 'energy and bravery.' 14. Dari explains that Adunni's non-standard English reflects literal translation from Yoruba and deliberate defiance of the assumption that fluency in English equals intelligence. 15. Dari connects climate change to FGM, child marriage, and increased gendered violence in rural Nigeria, citing her experience speaking to MPs on behalf of the International Rescue Committee about COVID-19 and climate effects on girls. 16. Bunting links girls' education explicitly to climate: educated women help manage birth rates, which is one of the biggest drivers of habitat destruction, and educated women have resources to adapt to extreme weather. 17. The conversation distinguishes fiction from documentary on the grounds that fiction allows emotional immersion — readers taste the dryness, feel the heat — in a way that factual reporting cannot achieve. 18. Dari reports that readers write to say the book made them conscious of small personal choices that affect rural African communities thousands of miles away and that it prompted both tears and laughter. 19. Climate fiction readers interested in how gender intersects with environmental collapse in sub-Saharan Africa will find this episode most rewarding. 20. Listeners seeking climate data, policy analysis, or technical solutions to emissions will find the episode more focused on culture and narrative than on science.

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A measured case for fiction as a serious way into climate thinking.

The Climate Question uses the Climate Fiction Prize as a clear entry point to a larger question: can fiction help listeners make sense of the climate crisis without losing sight of the people inside it?

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