Chloe Dalton: "I felt the pressure drop and realized I had been living at 100 miles per hour"

BarcelonaWhen British Chloe Dalton moved into a renovated old barn in the English countryside during the pandemic, she didn't know her life was about to take a turn. While juggling to continue her work as a political advisor in international crisis management, Dalton came across a helpless baby hare and took it home. There, an unusual and almost magical bond was born between her and the animal, which against all odds made its home in the barn. From that experience, Dalton has written Little Hare (Periscopi / Asteroide, 2026), a dazzling book that invites you to put life on pause and enjoy nature. In Catalan, it has been translated by Ricard Gil.

At what point did you decide to turn that experience into a book?

— During the pandemic, I had video conference meetings and didn't tell anyone I was taking care of a baby rabbit, because it didn't fit the image I had created for myself. I also didn't think the experience would last so long. But the days turned into weeks and months, and I started sending friends and family short videos of the animal, for example, when it was drumming with its paws on the cushions. I noticed that people loved it, that it fascinated them. Then the rabbit gave birth to baby rabbits at home. It was inconceivable. The wildest animal chose to give birth in a human home and then left the young in the room where I would write the book. At this point, I thought: 'I have been gifted this extraordinary experience. Perhaps I have a responsibility and should share it with other people'.

He tells an honest story, explaining that he relates to the animal from a place of ignorance. Was it a trial-and-error process?

— I didn't know what it was doing to me and I made some mistakes with the hare. For example, I didn't realize they are nocturnal animals. When it started sleeping under my bed, I got worried. I thought it was eating too much, that it was becoming domesticated. I would pick it up and take it outside. It would clean its paws, look at me, walk past me, go up the stairs, and return to bed. The animal simply tolerated all my attempts to figure out how to care for it.

Write that living with the hare transformed her. How was this change?

— The hare revealed things about myself that I didn't know. Instinctively, I felt that I shouldn't put it in a cage or give it a name, because that would be to belittle it. As a child, I had pets and they all had names. With the hare it was different. It taught me how important freedom is, the act of giving other people space to be who they need to be. 200 years ago I couldn't have had this experience. I would have been accused of being a witch living with a hare and, obviously, I couldn't have written a book about it. The hare has also taught me the power of silence, of observing nature and finding changes where you least expect them. 

How would you describe the clash between life with the hare and your work?

— For many years I worked as an advisor to the British Foreign Secretary. I traveled twice a week. I used to wake up at four in the morning, I had to inform myself about what had happened in the world and try to follow the government's long-term policies. I was used to living with adrenaline and captivated by international events. My gaze was always focused outwards, never on the immediate surroundings. The contrast with the hare was enormous, because it is an animal that lives just in a patch of land and returns to the same place to sleep every day. All of a sudden, I started eliminating things to create a suitable environment for it. I stopped listening to the news, I didn't turn on the lights at night, I stopped wearing perfume. Then I felt my pressure dropping and I realized that I had been living at 100 miles per hour.  

The book explains how a mower has killed several hares in a nearby field to exemplify the contradiction between wanting to protect animals and not having the tools to do so. Is it an impossible feat?

— Soon I saw that I could not even protect my hare. It hurt a paw and was very vulnerable to predators, and yet it left the garden every day and jumped over the wall. Part of the beauty of this experience is that it could have ended at any moment. Seeing all those hares and also the carcass of a kestrel, I became aware of the fragility of animals and, at the same time, of the fact that even without human intervention, their lives are very short. But I didn't want to be the city dweller who goes to the countryside and tells farmers how they should work. With the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, it has become evident that we need food security. I won't pretend we're not in a difficult moment, but progress is not linear. My experience working in politics has made me an optimistic person. I have seen that if you push, you can achieve things. 

Combines experiences with literary and historical references about hares. How did you manage not to write an encyclopedic book?

— For two years I was reading about hares simply out of curiosity. From there I tried to write in the simplest, most direct, accessible, and rigorous way. I wanted to make the animal shine, not to pour all sorts of facts or my life onto the pages. I love it when people tell me that before reading the book they thought it wasn't for them. I have tried to make it easy to get into, based on the idea that we think we know many things about hares, but in reality, we know practically nothing about them. Now that it seems everything has already been done and written, well, look, a discovery: hares are much more beautiful and interesting than you could have imagined.