H is for Hawk


H is for Hawk is a 2014 memoir by British author Helen Macdonald. It won the Samuel Johnson Prize and Costa Book of the Year award, among other honours.
The film of H Is for Hawk premiered in 2025

Content

H is for Hawk tells Macdonald's story of the year they spent training a Eurasian goshawk in the wake of their father's death. Their father, Alisdair Macdonald, was a respected photojournalist who died suddenly of a heart attack in 2007. Having previously been a falconer for many years, they purchased a young goshawk to help them through the grieving process.

Reception

The book reached The Sunday Times best-seller list within two weeks of being published in July 2014.
In an interview with The Guardian, Macdonald said, "While the backbone of the book is a memoir about that year when I lost my father and trained a hawk, there are also other things tangled up in that story which are not memoir. There is the shadow biography of TH White, and a lot of nature-writing, too. I was trying to let these different genres speak to each other." White was the author of The Goshawk, an account of his own attempt to train a goshawk.
Kevin Jackson, writing for Literary Review, drew further comparisons between Macdonald and White, in that she resembles him "in her gluttony for words both homely and exotic, their associations and histories." Macdonald's rich vocabulary is distinguished by her passion for precision, Jackson wrote: "Her eye is every bit as educated as her mind."
Judges of the Samuel Johnson Prize specifically highlighted that marriage of genres as one of the reasons for selecting H is for Hawk as the winner.
An extract of this book is part of the anthology of Edexcel English Language IGCSE in the new specification.

In media

Television

In "H is for Hawk: A New Chapter", part of BBC's Natural World series in 2017, Macdonald trained a new goshawk chick.

Film adaptation

The film rights for the memoir were acquired by Lena Headey in April 2015, with intentions to star and produce in the adaption in conjunction with Plan B Entertainment. In February 2024, it was announced Claire Foy and Brendan Gleeson were cast in the film, along with Philippa Lowthorpe named as the director and Emma Donoghue as scriptwriter. Film4 Productions also co-produced and co-financed the adaptation with Plan B. Principal photography began in Cambridge in November 2024. The film premiered at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival.

Awards and honours