Daisy Hildyard

{{Infobox person

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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1984}}

| birth_place = Malton, North Yorkshire, England

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| occupation = Novelist, essayist

| years_active = 2013–present

| notable_works = Hunters in the Snow (2013)
The Second Body (2017)
Emergency (2023)

| awards = Somerset Maugham Award
Encore Award

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Daisy Hildyard (born 1984) is an English novelist and essayist best known for her novels, Hunters in the Snow and Emergency. She has won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Encore Award.

Early life

Hildyard was born in Malton, North Yorkshire.{{Cite web |title=Daisy Hildyard |url=https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/daisy-hildyard |accessdate=17 December 2024 |work=Penguin Books Australia}}{{Cite web|url=https://yorkauthors.wordpress.com/whos-who/daisy-hildyard/|title=Who's Who: Daisy Hildyard|work=York Authors|accessdate=17 December 2024}}{{cite web |title=Daisy Hildyard |url=https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/authors/daisy-hildyard/ |website=Fitzcarraldo Editions |access-date=15 December 2024}} She gained a first-class degree at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 2003, and then studied for a doctorate in early modern scientific literature at Queen Mary University of London.{{cite web |title=Daisy Hildyard: Writer |url=https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/daisy-hildyard |website=St Edmund Hall |access-date=15 December 2024}}

Career

= Novel writing =

Hildyard's debut novel, Hunters in the Snow, was published in 2013. Set in rural Yorkshire, it interweaves memories of the narrator's childhood with her deceased grandfather's unreliable historical writings. Reviewers noted the influence of W. G. Sebald.{{cite news |last1=Thorpe |first1=Adam |title=Hunters in the Snow by Daisy Hildyard – review |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/19/hunters-snow-daisy-hildyard-review |access-date=15 December 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=19 August 2013}}{{cite web |title=Book review: Hunters in the Snow, By Daisy Hildyard |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-review-hunters-in-the-snow-by-daisy-hildyard-8771149.html |website=The Independent |access-date=25 January 2025}}{{cite web |last1=Wilson |first1=Angus |title=The history girl |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-history-girl/ |website=The Spectator |access-date=25 January 2025 |date=13 July 2013}} The novel won the 2014 Somerset Maugham Award, given to writers under the age of 35.{{cite web |title=Somerset Maugham Awards: Past winners |url=https://societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/somerset-maugham-awards/ |publisher=The Society of Authors |access-date=15 December 2024}}

In her next novel, Emergency, a narrator in lockdown recalls her semi-rural childhood in the context of global environmental change.{{cite web |title=Detritus of a lifetime |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/fiction/emergency-daisy-hildyard-book-review-clare-pettitt |website=The TLS |access-date=25 January 2025}}{{cite news |last1=Moss |first1=Sarah |title=Emergency by Daisy Hildyard review – a dark pastoral |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/04/emergency-by-daisy-hildyard-review-a-dark-pastoral |access-date=15 December 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=4 May 2022}} It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize{{cite web |title=Margo Jefferson wins 2023 Rathbones Folio prize |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/27/margo-jefferson-wins-2023-rathbones-folio-prize |website=The Guardian |access-date=25 January 2025}} and won the 2023 Encore Award, given for a second novel.{{cite news |last1=Spanoudi |first1=Melina |title=Hildyard wins £10,000 Encore Award for Emergency |url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/hildyard-wins-10000-encore-award-for-emergency |access-date=15 December 2024 |work=The Bookseller |date=15 June 2023 |language=En}}

= Other activities =

In 2017, Hildyard's essay collection, The Second Body (2017), was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. Its four long essays are linked by themes of climate and ecology disruption in the Anthropocene.{{cite web |title=The Second Body by Daisy Hildyard review – from winter floods to the origin of life |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/04/second-body-daisy-hildyard-review |website=The Guardian |access-date=25 January 2025}}{{cite web |title=Book Review: The Second Body |url=https://atticusreview.org/book-review-the-second-body/ |website=Atticus Review |access-date=25 January 2025}}

In 2022, Hildyard contributed the text to Overpass, a book of photographs exploring stiles and fences in the British countryside by landscape photographer and 2022 Guggenheim Fellow Sam Contis.{{cite book |last1=Contis |first1=Sam |last2=Hildyard |first2=Daisy |title=Overpass |publisher=Aperture |isbn=9781597115391}}{{cite web |last1=Frailey |first1=Stephen |title=Sam Contis |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/stephen-frailey-sam-contis-klaus-von-nichtssagend-gallery-2024-549739/ |website=Artforum |access-date=25 January 2025}}

Hildyard has also published fiction in The New Yorker,{{cite magazine |last1=Hildyard |first1=Daisy |title=Revision [short story] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/23/revision-fiction-daisy-hildyard |access-date=15 December 2024 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=15 December 2024}} essays and fiction in Granta,{{cite web |title=Daisy Hildyard |url=https://granta.com/contributor/daisy-hildyard/ |website=Granta |access-date=15 December 2024}} and reviews in The New York Review of Books{{cite news |title=Daisy Hildyard |url=https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/daisy-hildyard/ |access-date=15 December 2024 |work=The New York Review of Books |language=en}} and the Times Literary Supplement.{{cite web |title=Daisy Hildyard |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/authors/daisy-hildyard |website=The TLS |access-date=25 January 2025}}

Personal life

Hildyard is married to writer Caleb Klaces (winner of a 2012 Eric Gregory Award).{{cite web |title=Eric Gregory Awards: Past winners |url=https://societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/eric-gregory-awards/ |publisher=The Society of Authors |access-date=15 December 2024}} She lives with her husband and children in North Yorkshire.{{cite web |title='Is writing about climate change a futile act?': Daisy Hildyard on The Second Body and Emergency |url=https://thelondonmagazine.org/interview-is-writing-about-climate-change-a-futile-act-daisy-hildyard-on-the-second-body-and-emergency/ |website=The London Magazine |access-date=25 January 2025}}

Select publications

=Novels=

{{cite book |last1=Hildyard |first1=Daisy |title=Hunters in the Snow |date=2013 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |isbn=9780224097444}}
{{cite book |last1=Hildyard |first1=Daisy |title=Emergency |date=2023 |publisher=Fitzcarraldo Editions |location=London |isbn=9781913097813}}

=Essays=

{{cite book |last1=Hildyard |first1=Daisy |title=The Second Body |date=2017 |publisher=Fitzcarraldo Editions |location=London |isbn=9781910695470}}