PRESS: Winners of the 2025 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize
The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation is thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2025 £10,000 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is Babylonia by Costanza Casati (Penguin Michael Joseph).
Set in 9th-century BC Assyria, Babylonia follows Semiramis, an orphan who rises from obscurity to claim the ancient throne, navigating love, war and betrayal in a world obsessed with power.
Hand-picked from the six-strong shortlist featuring British, Filipino, Italian and Jamaican authors, Babylonia is the second consecutive historical fiction title to take home the Prize, following 2024’s winner, Saltblood by Francesca de Tores.
Casati was revealed as the winner at a private reception hosted at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London on Thursday 11th September. Niso Smith, Founder, said: “As a writer, Casati begins with character which is abundantly clear in Babylonia. Semiramis is the driving force of this novel - an ambitious, resilient young woman who will not let the world stand in her way.
Great adventure novels let us see the world through others’ vivid imagination, and Babylonia is a reminder that we have the power to make what we want of our lives. There’s passion, power, and truly transportive storytelling - inspired by history, Casati has taken all the ingredients for an adventure, and woven them into a mesmerising modern epic. My sincere congratulations to Costanza!"
Babylonia was selected by judges Nathan Gray, former high-risk test pilot and one of Britain’s most decorated military aviators; Keme Nzerem, journalist, filmmaker and co-founder of Opening Up The Outdoors; Francesca de Tores, author and winner of the 2024 Adventure Writing Prize; and Corinne Turner, literary IP consultant and former Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications.
The decision-making process begins with a panel of librarians and library staff from across the UK, who are responsible for selecting the long and shortlists each year, bringing their own taste, and that of their communities, to influence the selection of titles and champion a list that offers, ‘An Adventure for Everyone’.
Of Babylonia, one panellist said: “Ancient Assyria is a culture shock in many senses. The juxtaposition of the beauty and excesses of those in power and the brutality meted out to those without is breathtaking [...] Semiramis’s tale feels wholly unique—bold, rarely told, and brought to life with ferocious intensity. I haven’t read anything quite like this. Casati takes a semi-mythical figure and gives her depth, rage, love, and vision—elevating the narrative beyond the usual rise- to-power arc.”
Over the summer, libraries accessed digital and physical posters and resources, and readers were able to listen to interviews with each of the shortlisted authors in featured episodes of the That Wilbur Smith Show podcast.
Twelve book clubs, from Glasgow to Cornwall, shadowed the judging, reviewing the shortlisted novels and discussing them with the authors in a private book club meeting. The judges took their views into consideration, along with the results of an open-to-all reader’s vote, equating to one seat on the judging panel.
Brighton-based book club, Boozy & Bookish, told the Prize: “We have particularly enjoyed feeling a part of something and it’s been exciting to think that our little group has even a smidgen of influence [...] It’s also nice to have a book chosen FOR us rather than by us, especially when it’s a book none of us may have picked up otherwise and so many of us ended up thoroughly enjoying.”
Both a vital part of the UK literary infrastructure, book clubs and libraries are knowledgeable, passionate spaces which succeed in getting books into the hands of more readers. This year, the Prize supported over one hundred book clubs and libraries across the UK.
With Casati at the helm, we encourage readers to engage with all the 2025 books and experience the very different adventures they offer.
Judge, Keme Nzerem, said: “This years' authors do the concept of adventure proud. The beauty of reading books for me is in being transported deep into someone else's world; to be weighed and moved by their mores; to taste their troubles; and raised by their joys.
The irrepressible centenarian ganja farmer in A House for Miss Pauline, the misunderstood and much maligned healer in the eponymously named Sycorax, the audacious survival and vim of Babylonian Queen Semiramis - what a delight it was to get to know the characters in this crop of wonderful novels. All of them embarking on ripsnorting adventures that had me hooked from beginning to end.”
New Voices Award:
Five writers have also been selected as the winners of this year’s New Voices award, designed to unearth and support aspiring authors to take a fledgling idea from work-in-progress to complete manuscript. Each writer will receive a year of mentorship and one-to-one editorial guidance as part of the programme.
2025’s cohort are Brazilian, British, Irish and Singaporean and are working on manuscripts set across the world. Stories were submitted from twelve countries, with the winners bringing a diversity of voice and perspective, their success reflecting the breadth of the adventure genre. The five works are:
Whale Song by Sarah Ang
Land of Water by Oliver Tobias Bugg
The Fold by Bidisha Chakraborty
Invisible Animals by Marcella Marx
A Bear Wakes in Winter by Sam McManus
Settings stretch from a remote Norwegian mountain village to a small Chilean lakeside town, and characters include a group of young climbers determined to take on the towering granite of Baffin Island, to a research team investigating whale strandings off the coast of New Zealand. For more information on each writer and their work-in-progress, please visit the links above.
Author of Tomorrow:
Selected by a team of young judges, the winners of the Author of Tomorrow award for a short adventure story by a writer aged 21 and under, are:
11 and Under - Prize: £100 plus £150 book tokens for your school
Winner: Deep Dive by Mei Lau (age 10)
12-15 years - Prize: £250 plus £150 book tokens for your school
Winner: The Newfound Voice by Amena Datoo (age 12)
16-21 years - Prize: £1,000
Winner: The Dividing Line by Abbie Englund (age 20)
Highly Commended by Niso Smith:
Salt in Her Lungs by Madeline Arcaro (age 21)
Ten shortlisted writers worked with an editor to make their work ready for digital publication in 2025’s anthology titled Myths, Mysteries and Mavericks. The anthology is available to read via BookSmart by Worldreader, which makes high quality books available to children anywhere in the world with internet access.
To read the collection, visit Booksmart online or download the BookSmart app, and search Myths, Mysteries and Mavericks.
For further information about this year’s authors click here.
Once again, we would like to say congratulations to all of the authors involved in this year’s prize, and a huge thank you to our incredible team of judges, librarians and volunteers.