Katherine Rundell

Early life and education

Rundell was born in Kent, England on 10 July 1987 and spent ten years in Harare, Zimbabwe, where her father was a diplomat. Rundell later told Newsweeks Tim de Lisle that it was a culture shock, saying: "In Zimbabwe, school ended every day at 1 o’clock. I didn’t wear shoes, and there was none of the teenage culture that exists in Europe. My friends and I were still climbing trees and having swimming competitions". inspired by a 1937 book, The Night Climbers of Cambridge, about the adventures of undergraduate students.

Career Rundell's first book, published in 2011, was The Girl Savage; it told the story of Wilhelmina Silver, a girl from Zimbabwe, who is sent to an English boarding-school following the death of her father. A slightly revised version was released in the United States in 2014, under the title Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, it was the winner of the 2015 Prix Sorcières Junior novels category.

Rundell's third novel, The Wolf Wilder, tells the story of Feodora, who prepares wolf cubs – kept as status-symbol pets by wealthy Russians – for release into the wild when they become too large and unmanageable for their owners. won the 2016 Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award and opened Off-Broadway in February 2017.

Rundell's fourth novel, The Explorer, Following the award, Rundell discussed the book's environmental themes and her research, which included eating tinned tarantulas, on BBC Radio 4's Front Row. It won the 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award in the Food & Travel Book of the Year category.

Rundell's fifth novel, The Good Thieves,

In 2022, she published Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which won the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize and was praised by Claire Tomalin and Andrew Motion, among others. What distinguishes Rundell's biography and makes it worth reading is, according to Professor of English Literature Joe Moshenska in Literary Review, that she is above all a writer, well-versed in the art of prose: "Rather than telling us why Donne is worth reading and absorbing into one’s way of thinking, her writing shows us."

As reported by The Guardian, "She is giving the Baillie Gifford prize money to charity: to Blue Ventures, an ocean-based conservation organisation, and also to a refugee charity. The reason? 'No man is an island,' she says, citing that most famous of all Donne lines." In February 2024, it was confirmed that the Impossible Creatures series will include five books in total. The second book in the series, The Poisoned King, was released in 2025. In October 2025, Walt Disney Studios acquired the rights to adapt Impossible Creatures into a live-action film series to be produced by Walt Disney Pictures.

Publications Rundell's published work includes:

The Girl Savage Rooftoppers Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms The Wolf Wilder The Explorer One Christmas Wish Into the Jungle: Stories for Mowgli The Good Thieves Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise Skysteppers Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne The Zebra's Great Escape The Golden Mole Impossible Creatures Impossible Creatures Book 2: The Poisoned King

Personal life Rundell's hobbies include tightrope walking and roof walking.