By William Davies

Eve Smith is the author of three speculative thrillers. Her latest novel, ONE, published in 2023, is set in a one-child policy Britain that has been ravaged by climate change. It was longlisted for the 2023 British Science Fiction Association Best Novel award. Her debut, The Waiting Rooms, set during an antibiotic crisis, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award and selected as a Guardian Book of the Month. Off Target, her second novel, imagines a world where genetic engineering of children has become the norm. It was a Times Book of the Month, who described it as ‘an astute, well-researched and convincing novel of ideas.’ Eve’s books are published by Orenda Books. Her website is www.evesmithauthor.com 

Before writing full-time, Eve worked for an environmental charity on research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas. 

This interview developed out of an in-person event held at Ewell Library, UK, in September 2023. 

Thanks for your time, Eve. Let’s start with ONE. It’s a chilling speculative thriller that covers many themes, from climate change to women’s rights. How did the novel come about and what was your process for writing it? 

The premise for ONE was born out of two ideas. First, what if birth was a crime? How might a one-child policy play out in Britain? Second, how might the climate emergency change the UK, not only in terms of environmental impacts, but also the social and political ramifications? How would it affect how we’re governed and how we treat people?

During my research, I read Shen Yang’s More Than One Child, a powerful memoir about growing up as an illegal excess child in China under their one-child policy. The author had committed a crime just by being born. During China’s one-child policy over half a billion birth control procedures were carried out over more than three decades. Many of those sterilisations and terminations were forced. Given the recent abuses of abortion rights in the US, with Roe vs Wade being overturned, the fact that such a thing could happen today in a Western democracy made me question what else a government in the West might do to curtail reproductive rights.

In ONE, I also wanted to explore how a totalitarian party might take advantage of the climate crisis to secure power. In Europe, several far-right groups have adopted the clothes of an environmental agenda to promote nationalist policies. In my novel, on the surface, the UK appears to be doing pretty well. Through climate tech investment and radical shifts in policy and laws, the country has adapted to cope with many climate change effects. Britain is self-sufficient in food, water and energy. Jobs are plentiful. Healthcare is good. But it has come at a cost: freedom and choice. 

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