A novel featuring a protagonist whose job is taken by AI has won the Climate fiction prize.
Hum by Helen Phillips, the American writer’s third novel, is about a woman, May, who loses her job to a “hum” of the title – a humanoid robot. Struggling to find work, she becomes a guinea pig for an experimental injection that alters her face so it can’t be recognised by surveillance. When she gets paid for it, she splashes out on family passes to the Botanical Garden, the last remaining green space in her city. There, things take a turn for the worse.
The prize, worth £10,000, was first awarded last year to Abi Daré for And So I Roar, the follow-up to her bestselling debut The Girl with the Louding Voice.
Judge and writer Kit de Waal described Phillips’s book as being about the “Disneyfication of nature … turning nature into a rare place that we have to pay to see”. Fellow judge and climate scientist Friederike Otto added that it “tackles the central reason that nothing is done about the climate crisis – privilege”, while writer Daisy Hildyard described it as “mesmerising and scary” in a Guardian review.
Alongside Phillips on this year’s shortlist were Madeleine Thien for The Book of Records, Robbie Arnott for Dusk, Keshava Guha for The Tiger’s Share, Susanna Kwan for Awake in the Floating City and Maria Reva for Endling.
Phillips was inspired to write the book after walking home from work one day and having the thought that she needed to buy dishcloths, before opening her computer at home and finding that dishcloths were being advertised to her. “That eerie feeling stuck with me, and I started to think about what worst-case scenarios might arise from surveillance by an algorithm.”
Hum “helps us connect with what really matters and stops us from sleepwalking into an inevitable dystopia”, said Lucy Stone, CEO of Climate Spring, which funds the prize. “In the novel, the machines themselves start to question the insane volume of advertising and the consumer treadmill, and then show the family that there are multiple different futures lying ahead of them.”
This year’s judging panel was chaired by Guardian theatre critic and former literary editor of the Independent, Arifa Akbar. Alongside De Waal and Otto on the panel were author Jessie Greengrass and book influencer Simon Savidge.
As well as three novels, Phillips is the author of two short story collections and a children’s book.
Hum by Helen Phillips (Atlantic Books, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Helen Phillips will appear at Hay festival to discuss the book on Friday 30 May
