American writer N.K. Jemisin won her third consecutive Hugo Award for best novel with The Stone Sky, the final instalment in her Broken Earth trilogy. The Hugo Awards are widely considered to be one of the biggest honours for science fiction writing in the world.

The first two books in Jemisin's series, The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, won the Hugo Awards' top prize 2016 and 2017 respectively. When she first accepted it two years ago, Jemisin became the first Black American writer to receive the award.

The Broken Earth trilogy follows a woman named Essun, who comes home one day to find that her son has been murdered and daughter kidnapped by her husband. As Essun searches for her daughter, the world around her begins to collapse under the weight of one man's violence.

In her acceptance speech at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, Calif., Jemisin said that her science fiction writing is a reflection of history.

"This has been a hard year… a hard few years, a hard century...," said Jemisin, as reported by The Guardian. "For some of us, things have always been hard, and I wrote the Broken Earth trilogy to speak to that struggle, and what it takes to live, let alone thrive, in a world that seems determined to break you."

A total of 19 prizes were given out at the Hugo Awards. Other winners include Lois McMaster Bujold, winner of best series for World of the Five Gods, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, winners of best graphic story for Monstress, Volume 2, Nnedi Okorafor, winner of best young adult book for Akata Warrior and Rebecca Roanhorse, winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.