2025 Goldsmiths Prize (shortlist)
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The Observer, Financial Times, Daily Mail, The Independent, and the Chicago Public Library • From the twice-Booker-nominated writer of Burntcoat, a bold and astonishing literary masterpiece that explores faith, connection, and our relationship to the natural world.
"A moving, urgent novel.’
—The New York Times Book Review
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.
Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm — and the farmer’s daughter who fiercely loved Helm. But now Dr. Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm.
Rich, wild, and vital, Helm is the story of a singular life force, and of the relationship between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.
Genre: Literary Fiction
"A moving, urgent novel.’
—The New York Times Book Review
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.
Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm — and the farmer’s daughter who fiercely loved Helm. But now Dr. Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm.
Rich, wild, and vital, Helm is the story of a singular life force, and of the relationship between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Helm is just a brilliant achievement, and could really only be created by Sarah Hall. I can think of no better writer to give voice to a natural phenomenon, because she is one herself." - Kirstin Innes
"Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes." - Daisy Johnson
"Helm is a wonder. I'm almost drunk on so many voices and so much invention. There's something fearless in the way Sarah Hall writes. It's a novel rooted in a sense of place, but extraordinarily expansive in its time travelling. A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller. A writer at full stretch and at the top of her craft." - Andrew Miller
"I'm awed by Sarah Hall's ability to hold timelines from prehistory to modern climate anxiety in simultaneous tension. I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do." - Sarah Moss
"Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes." - Daisy Johnson
"Helm is a wonder. I'm almost drunk on so many voices and so much invention. There's something fearless in the way Sarah Hall writes. It's a novel rooted in a sense of place, but extraordinarily expansive in its time travelling. A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller. A writer at full stretch and at the top of her craft." - Andrew Miller
"I'm awed by Sarah Hall's ability to hold timelines from prehistory to modern climate anxiety in simultaneous tension. I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do." - Sarah Moss
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