Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a poet, playwright and novelist. She was born in London on 2 9 March 1990, and 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 was Waterstones Children's Book of the Month and an instant bestseller, entering its fourth reprinting within three months of release. The US release is scheduled for November 2016. It has sold to over a dozen territories around the world.
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 appears 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. It opened to five star reviews, with CultureFly calling it 'the most compelling and urgent piece of theatre you will see this year.' Her children's novel of a fragile paradise The Island at the End of Everything (2017) was shortlisted for the 2017 Costa Book Awards.
Hargrave graduated from Cambridge University in 2011, Oxford University in 2014, and currently lives in Oxford with her Husband, the visual artist Tom de Freston.