H IS FOR HAWK

VIRTUAL Q&A PREVIEW SCREENING
With author Helen Macdonald
WED MAY 13, 6.30pm

Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Costa Book of the Year, and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France, and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the US. They are also the author of the New York Times bestselling essay collection Vesper Flights, a cultural history of falcons, several poetry collections, and (with Sin Blaché) the sci-fi novel Prophet.

When Helen’s beloved father passes away, she is overtaken by grief and loses herself in memories of their time birding and exploring the natural world together. She becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk, and so she brings the fearsome bird Mabel home to Cambridge with her. Ready to embark on the arduous process of trying to train the wildest of animals, Helen fills the freezer with hawk food and turns off her phone. But as she labours to teach Mabel how to hunt and fly free on her own, Helen uncovers how neglected her own emotions and life have become.

H is for Hawk is a soaring journey of the connection between people and nature, and how it might be possible to reconcile loss through love.

★ ★ ★ ★ “Claire Foy is remarkable” — The Independent