RUTHVIKA RAO’s ‘FEARLESS’ DEBUT NOVEL, THE FERTILE EARTH, WINS TENTH WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE

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LONDON, UK, THURSDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER, 2026 – The Fertile Earth by Ruthvika Rao (Oneworld Publications) has been announced as the winner of the tenth annual Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

The Fertile Earth is only the second debut novel to win the Prize, following Emma Styles’s win with No Country for Girls in 2023. Rao was revealed as the winner at a private event hosted at Foyles Charing Cross Road, London on Thursday 17th September. The Michigan-based author takes home the £10,000 award.

The novel follows four young people, born into different castes in Irumi, a village in 1950s India. A catastrophic accident links their fates forever and the repercussions scatter them across India, to grow up against a backdrop of armed revolts and the Naxalite uprising.

Niso Smith, Prize Founder, said ‘I am so impressed by the honesty of The Fertile Earth, with its cruel, proud and hopeful characters. But mostly I admire the story itself, which helps us to see a part of a country and its people at a time of transformation.

Ruthvika’s writing and the scale of this book make it soar. She takes us from village to city, letting us experience a rich and vivid southern India in both its magical and unforgiving forms. The voices of

Krishna, Vijaya, Ranga and Sree are so real they will live on in readers’ minds forever. Huge congratulations to Ruthvika!’

Handpicked from the six-strong shortlist by a panel of librarians and library staff from across the UK, The Fertile Earth was then selected as the winner by judges Josh Adeyemi, outdoor influencer, content creator & Founder of Black Scottish Adventurers; Alex Bescoby, travel writer and filmmaker; Costanza Casati, author and winner of the 2025 Adventure Writing Prize; Captain Preet Chandi MBE, record-breaking army officer and Polar Explorer; and Tamsin Collison, audio director and producer. Readers were also invited to cast three online votes which, collated, represented one seat on the judging panel.

Judge Costanza Casati commented: ‘The Fertile Earth is an epic, ambitious story of adventure, class and family. Written in a language so beautiful that it tears at your heart, this book is fearless in the way in which it tackles the complexities of the human soul, and how our personal choices often affect the great political changes of our countries. A book that is hard to forget.’

Of the shortlist, Casati said: ‘This year’s shortlist proves how great and varied the genre of adventure has become. From the blood-soaked streets of the French Revolution in The Tarot Reader of Versailles to the wild forests of Roman Britain in Boudicca’s Daughter, this was a special year for adventure and I would encourage readers to pick up as many of these novels as possible.’

Earlier this year, the Prize changed its terms and conditions to consider books only from the point they are published in paperback. The intention behind which was to make the books more accessible to readers, to better serve them and, in turn, better serve writers. The ethos behind the Prize, to provide ‘An Adventure for Everyone’, now extends beyond the content of the books. Working in paperback allows library budgets to stretch to stock more copies, and encourages the book-buying public to take a chance on an author that’s new to them.

The Prize worked with Gardners, to ask independent bookshops to ‘Put Adventure Front and Centre’, and continued a relationship with The Reading Agency that, together, saw close to 150 libraries and independent bookshops nationwide access free printed point-of-sale display materials to champion the shortlist within their communities.

Twelve book clubs, from Cornwall to Swansea to Norfolk, shadowed the shortlist and, with the Prize marking a decade of adventure, helped to reaffirm the charity’s commitment to keep both readers and writers at the heart of the mission.

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 first draft. Each writer will receive a year of mentorship and one-to-one editorial guidance. They are:

A Loving Gaze by Nicholas Gauthier

The Grit of Cordelia Stratton by Joyanna Lovelock

World Without End by Siân Marlow

A Distant Glint of Silver by Holly May

This Tender Soil by Nayela Wickramasuriya

Stories were submitted from nine countries, including the USA, Australia, Canada, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Malaysia, with the winners bringing a breadth of voices and perspectives that promise fresh stories.

The winners of the Author of Tomorrow short story award for young writers aged 21 and under was also announced. Selected by a panel of young judges, the winners are:

11 and Under – Prize: £100 plus £150 book tokens for your school – Last Lantern on the Crouch by Hari Vasireddy

12-15 years – Prize: £250 plus £150 book tokens for your school – A Thousand Lamps by Aarna Jakkal

16-21 years – Prize: £1,000 – Come Back by Famya Faiz

Highly Commended by Niso Smith – Prize: £250 – Fire Season by Ho Min Ru

Including the above, ten young writers were shortlisted and worked with an editor to ready their work for digital publication. 2026’s anthology, Fire, Frost and Far Horizons, is now available to read via BookSmart by Worldreader, a charity which makes high quality books available to children anywhere in the world with internet access. To read the collection, visit https://booksmart.worldreader.org/home and search Fire, Frost and Far Horizons.

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ABOUT THE FOUNDATION: The Prize is awarded by The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation, a charity established in 2015 by the late bestselling author Wilbur Smith and his wife, Niso. The Foundation empowers writers, promotes literacy and advances adventure writing as a genre, working to uplift, inspire and educate writers and readers of all ages across the world.

NOTES TO THE EDITOR: Further information can be found on our website about 2026’s shortlist for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, the New Voices winners, and the Authors of Tomorrow.

Contact: Charlotte Maddox | Prize Manager charlotte@wilbur-niso-smithfoundation.org | 07792 614652 i: @adventurewritingprize | f: @WNSmithFoundation | x: @Wilbur_Niso_Fdn www.wilbur-niso-smithfoundation.org