Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Kiran Millwood Hargrave FRSL (born 29 March 1990) is a British poet, playwright and novelist. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[1]

Life

Hargrave was born on 29 March 1990 in London. She graduated from Cambridge University in 2011, and Oxford University in 2014.

Career

She started writing for publication in 2009. In 2014, her debut novel The Girl Of Ink and Stars aka The Cartographer's Daughter was bought as part of a six-figure, two-book deal by Knopf Random House (US), and Chicken House Scholastic (rest-of-world). It was published in May 2016 in the UK, where it won the overall Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2017 and the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year.[2][3] The US release was in November 2016. It has sold to more than 25 territories around the world and is a perennial bestseller in the UK.

Hargrave's poetry has appeared internationally in journals such as Magma, Room, Agenda, Shearsman, The Irish Literary Review and Orbis. In 2013, Neil Astley judged her poem 'Grace' winner of the Yeovil Literary Prize. This poem appeared in her third collection, Splitfish (Gatehouse Press, 2013). Her first piece as a playwright, about human trafficking, was entitled BOAT, and first dramatized in October 2015 by PIGDOG theatre company at Theatre N16 in Balham.[4] It opened to five-star reviews, with CultureFly calling it "the most compelling and urgent piece of theatre you will see this year."

Her second children's novel of a fragile paradise, The Island at the End of Everything (2017) was shortlisted for the 2017 Costa Book Awards. Her third children's novel, The Way Past Winter, was published in late 2018, followed in 2019 by her debut YA novel, The Deathless Girls.[5][6][7] Her first adult novel, The Mercies was published by Picador in 2020, and became an instant bestseller.[8] Julia and the Shark (2021) in collaboration with her husband, Tom de Freston, was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and the Wainwright Prize for Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation.[9]

Personal life

She currently lives in Oxford with her husband, the visual artist Tom de Freston.[10] She is bisexual.[11] Hargrave is partly of Indian descent, through her mother.[12][13]

Works

Adult novels
  • The Mercies (Picador, 2020)
  • The Dance Tree (Picador, 2022)

Young Adult novels
  • The Deathless Girls (Orion, 2019)

Children's books
  • The Girl of Ink and Stars (Chicken House, 2016)
  • The Island at the End of Everything (Chicken House, 2017)
  • The Way Past Winter (Chicken House, 2018)
  • A Secret of Birds & Bone (Chicken House, 2020)
  • Julia and the Shark (Orion, 2021)
  • Leila and the Blue Fox (Orion, 2022)
  • Geomancer Trilogy
    • In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen (Orion, 2023)

Awards and recognitions

References
  1. Creamer, Ella (12 July 2023). "Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows". The Guardian.
  2. Kean, Danuta (30 March 2017). "Waterstones children's book prize goes". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  3. "Kiran Millwood Hargrave". Janklow & Nesbit UK. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  4. Kressly, Laura (22 October 2015). "Boat, Theatre N16". The Play's The Thing UK. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  5. O'Connell, Alex (6 October 2018). "Review: The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave". The Times. London, England. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  6. Graham, Jane (17 December 2018). "The Big Issue's best kids' books of the year 2018". The Big Issue. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  7. Empire, Kitty (24 September 2018). "Fiction for older children reviews – many happy book returns". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  8. "Picador wins Millwood Hargrave's adult bow". The Bookseller. 10 April 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  9. "James Cropper Wainwright Prize 2022 shortlists announced". Wainwright Prize. James Cropper plc. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  10. "All about Kiran..." kiranmillwoodhargrave.co.uk. Archived from the original on 7 April 2020. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  11. Hargrave, Kiran Millwood [@Kiran_MH] (19 February 2022). "I am bi! Mari from #TheIslandAtTheEndOfEverything is bi! Ursa from #TheMercies is bi! & while writing a short story for something exciting (TBA), I discovered Isabella from #TheGirlOfInkAndStars is bi! We exist, we count, our stories matter 🏳️‍🌈" (Tweet). Retrieved 19 July 2022 – via Twitter.
  12. @kiran_mh (14 April 2019). "I have Indian heritage but my white skin protects me from so much" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  13. An Interview with Waterstones Children's Book Prize Winner Kiran Millwood Hargraves. Waterstones.
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