Helen Macdonald

Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk is among the most anticipated works of nonfiction this spring. Winner of the 2014 Costa Book of the Year and the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction, it is the remarkable story of one woman’s resolve to raise and train the most bloodthirsty of birds: the goshawk. But it’s also a heart-wrenching account of Macdonald’s grief at the sudden death of her father; a literary meditation on The Sword and the Stone author T.H.White—a writer who also sought to fill a void through training a goshawk; a gripping piece of nature writing that “reads like a thriller” (The Guardian) and transports both writer and reader to the edge of humanity and back.

About Helen Macdonald: Writer, poet, illustrator, historian, and naturalist, Helen Macdonald is also an affiliated research scholar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. She also worked as a Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge. As a professional falconer, she assisted with the management of raptor research and conservation projects across Eurasia.