On 20 August 2018, Greta Thunberg, then aged 15, did not attend her first day back at school after the summer holidays. Instead, she made a sign that read “School strike for climate change” and stood in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, demanding the government reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris climate agreement.

Her protest sparked the international movement Fridays for Future, in which schoolchildren around the world skip class to insist their governments take urgent action to halt the ongoing climate crisis. Since then, Thunberg has given a TED talk on the subject, been named one of the world’s most influential teens by Time magazine, and been nominated for the Nobel peace prize. After she addressed the Houses of Parliament in April, MPs endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s call to declare a climate emergency, aiming to “set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe”.

Thunberg first became concerned with the climate crisis aged eight after learning about it in school. By the age of 11, she had fallen into a state of severe depression about the world, which led her to stop talking and eating. She has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, OCD and selective mutism, and has said that being on the spectrum has been in some ways an advantage, “as almost everything is black or white”. Thunberg has taken part in protests around the world and to save on carbon emissions she does not travel by plane, doing most of her travelling by train; she is also a vegan.

Play Video 2:04 The Greta Thunberg effect: her activism in London in two minutes - video

On 30 May, Penguin will publish No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, the collected speeches of Thunberg, and later in the year will publish Scenes from the Heart, the story of the Thunberg family (all earnings will be donated to charity).

On 7 July, the Observer New Review will publish an interview with Thunberg in which readers ask the questions. Submit your questions in the comments section below, email us at review@observer.co.uk or tweet @ObsNewReview by 4pm on Thursday 6 June.

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