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Helen Macdonald (writer)

Helen Macdonald (born 1970) is a non-binary English writer and naturalist. She is best known as the author of H is for Hawk, which won the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize^[1] and Costa Book Award;^[2] in 2016, it won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France.

Early life[edit]

Macdonald was born in 1970, the child of Daily Mirror photojournalist Alisdair Macdonald, and grew up in Surrey.^[3] Writing about her childhood for The Guardian in 2018, Macdonald said,

"I grew up in Camberley, a Victorian town on the A30 in Surrey. It was made of pine forests, golf courses, elderly army officers with parade ground voices, Conservative clubs and tea dances. In 1975 my parents had bought a little white house in Tekels Park, a private estate near the town centre. It was owned by the Theosophical Society. My parents were journalists and knew nothing of theosophy, but they loved the Park, and I did too. No place has so indelibly shaped my writing life".^[4]

Macdonald went on to study English at Cambridge University.^[5] She was a research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2007,^[6] and an affiliated research scholar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, until 2015.^[7]

Career[edit]

Macdonald has written and narrated several radio programmes, and appeared on television in the BBC Four documentary series, Birds Britannia, in 2010.^[8] Her books include Shaler's Fish (2001), Falcon (2006), H is for Hawk (2014), and Vesper Flights (2020). Macdonald received critical acclaim for H is for Hawk, including the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction and the Costa Book Award.^[9] The book—which also became a Sunday Times best-seller—describes the year Macdonald spent after the death of her father training a Northern goshawk named Mabel, and includes biographical material about the naturalist and writer T. H. White.^[10]

Macdonald also helped make the film "10 X Murmuration" with filmmaker Sarah Wood as part of a 2015 exhibition at the Brighton Festival.^[11]InH is for Hawk: A New Chapter, part of BBC's Natural World series in 2017, she trained a new goshawk chick.^[12]

Macdonald presented the BBC Four documentary, The Hidden Wilds of the Motorway, in 2020.^[13] That same year saw the publication of a fourth book, Vesper Flights, a collection of essays about "the human relationship to the natural world".^[3] In 2023, with Sinistra Blaché, she published a novel, Prophet.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Personal life[edit]

Macdonald lives in Hawkedon, Suffolk. She resided with a parrot, Birdoole, who died in 2021.^[18] Macdonald's goshawk, Mabel, died in 2014.^[18] Macdonald is non-binary and uses she/they pronouns.^[19]

Bibliography[edit]

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (September 2020)

• Shaler's Fish. St Leonards on Sea: Etruscan Books. 2001. ISBN 978-1901538335.
• Falcon. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. 2006. ISBN 978-1861892386.
• H is for Hawk. London: Jonathan Cape. 2014. ISBN 978-0224097000.
• Falcon, new edition. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. 2016. ISBN 978-1780236414.
• Vesper Flights. London: Jonathan Cape. 2020. ISBN 978-0224097017.
• "Learning from the birds". Spring Reflection. New Statesman. 149 (5514): 34–35. 3–23 April 2020.
• Macdonald, Helen; Blaché, Sinistra (2023). Prophet. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-1787334298.

Poetry[edit]

Collections

• Simple objects. Cambridge: Peter Riley. 1993.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Helen Macdonald - May 2015 ABC interview with Richard Fidler (audio)
• Helen Macdonald's blog