Chloe Dalton's debut novel named Hay Festival Book of the Year 2024

The Hay Festival Book of the Year for 2024 has been named as Chloe Dalton’s debut novel, Raising Hare (Canongate). Dalton’s book was only published last month, but was voted as the winner by hundreds of book lovers.

The book is 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".

Hay Festival c.e.o. 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."

Dalton is a writer, political adviser and foreign policy specialist and spent more than a decade working in the UK Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before writing her first novel.

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."

Dalton will discuss the book in a sold-out event at Hay Festival Winter Weekend on Saturday 30th November.