Sri Lankan writer Vajra Chandrasekera is the winner of the 2025 Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction for his novel Rakesfall. The prize is given to a writer in memory of Le Guin for a single work of imaginative fiction, and this year, Chandrasekera will receive a cash prize of $ 25,000.

The novel follows Annelid and Leveret, who met as children in the middle of the Sri Lankan civil war. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they’ll never leave each other behind.

Chandrasekera’s novel was chosen by selectors Matt Bell, Indra Das, Kelly Link, Sequoia Nagamatsu, and Rebecca Roanhorse. The panel said: “As fluid and changing as water, Rakesfall funnels genre, narrative structures, characters, and our conception of time into a spiritual kaleidoscope. Rakesfall trusts us to follow, across the literary equivalent of light years, a deeply felt and moving story of grief, loss, and ultimately hope to savor in dark times. Like Le Guin, Vajra Chandrasekera writes about colonialism and power with a kind of moral clarity and strength that speaks to the heart as well as the mind. He has created a masterclass of the possibilities inherent in fiction. Rakesfall is an extraordinary achievement in science fiction, and a titanic work of art.”

The shortlist included seven other books, besides the winner:

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