Robert Macfarlane author page

Robert Macfarlane biography

Robert Macfarlane is a British writer and academic known for his works on landscape, nature, and place. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he teaches literature. Macfarlane’s writing spans non-fiction, children’s literature, and essays, often exploring the relationship between language and the natural world.

His first book, Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination, was published in 2003 and won the Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. In 2007, he published The Wild Places, which was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature and the Dolman Best Travel Book Award.

Macfarlane’s subsequent works include The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (2012), which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Costa Biography Award. In 2015, he published Landmarks, a study of language and landscape. Underland: A Deep Time Journey appeared in 2019 and won the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing.

In collaboration with illustrator Jackie Morris, Macfarlane co-authored The Lost Words (2017), a children’s book that won the Kate Greenaway Medal and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year. The pair also published The Lost Spells in 2020.

Macfarlane’s books have been translated into multiple languages and have received numerous literary awards. Underland was named Book of the Year at the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Awards. His work is published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin Books.