Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton named  Hay Festival Book of the Year 2024

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton has been named Hay Festival Book of the Year 2024 after hundreds of book lovers nominated their favourite titles of the year online.  

A meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare, Raising Hare has charmed readers and critics alike since its publication last month.  

Chloe Dalton is a writer, political adviser and foreign policy specialist. She has spent over a decade working in the UK Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has advised, and written for and with, numerous prominent figures. She divides her time between London and her home in the English countryside. Raising Hare is her first book. 

Hay Festival CEO Julie Finch said:  

“At the end of each year, we ask our audience to tell us about the books they couldn’t put down. The resulting submissions are a varied and engaging snapshot of the year’s most impactful fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Since its release, Raising Hare has become a fast Festival favourite – a classic tale of transformation imbued with new questions around what it means to be human. We are delighted to celebrate it as our Book of the Year.”  

Chloe Dalton said:

“I am so grateful to the many readers who have taken Raising Hare to their hearts. My life has been turned upside down by a single extraordinary hare, and I hope the story will bring as much happiness to others as it has done to me. My thanks go to the Hay Festival for this vote of confidence, which means the world to me as a first-time author.”

Past winners of the Hay Festival Book of the Year have been Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry (2022), Deborah Levy’s Real Estate (2021), Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist (2020), Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five (2019), Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s Inventing Ourselves (2018) and Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s The Lost Words (2017).  

Chloe Dalton will discuss the book in a sold-out event at Hay Festival Winter Weekend on Saturday 30 November. The session will be streamed online with highlights shared throughout December for the Hay Festival Book Club.  

Hay Festival Winter Weekend is back for a year-end wonderland of in-person events, 28 November–1 December, in multiple venues across Hay-on-Wye, Wales. 

Explore the programme and book tickets now at hayfestival.org/winter-weekend. 

Over four days, more than 70 acclaimed artists take part in more than 60 events, launching the best new fiction and non-fiction, exploring creative solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time, and spreading festive joy in conversations, candle-lit storytelling, comedy, music, and workshops.

Guests include novelists Ali Smith and Paula Hawkins; actors Rupert Everett and Paterson Joseph; broadcaster and campaigner Carol Vorderman; former Australian PM Julia Gillard; statistician David Spiegelhalter; classicist Natalie Haynes; poet Theresa Lola; Uncanny host Danny Robins; comedians Russell Kane and Vic Reeves; broadcaster Cerys Matthews; musician Arun Ghosh; supervet Noel Fitzpatrick; and historians Sarah Clegg and Jonathan Dimbleby. 

Events will take place in a specially built 350-seater marquee in the grounds of Hay Castle, in the Castle’s Clore workshop space, plus venues around town, including St Mary’s Church, The Poetry Bookshop, and North Books. 

The Festival’s bookshop, open daily from 9am, will stock featured titles and gifts, plus host regular book signings and a special display from Festival partner Visit Seattle. 

Part-funded by the UK Government via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the Festival weekend sees the Welsh booktown’s independent shops, cafés and markets offer a warm welcome to Festivalgoers within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.

Digital media partner TikTok will support Hay Festival Winter Weekend for the first time, hosting some of the UK’s top creators while supporting development opportunities for young creatives within the team. 

Select events will be live-streamed to audiences around the world through the Festival’s online pass, on sale now at hayfestival.org/onlinepass.