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Burial Rites

Hannah Kent, 2013 Little, Brown & Co. 336 pp. ISBN-13: 9780316243919

Summary

A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.
Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Toti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.
Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others? (From the publisher.)

Author Bio

• Birth—1985

• Where—Adelaide, Australia

• Education—Ph.D., Flinders University (in progress)

• Awards—Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award

• Currently—lives in Adelaide, Australia
Hannah Kent is a contemporary Australian writer, as well as the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. She is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award
Kent was included in the 2013 Waterstones 11 for her debut novel Burial Rites (2013), which revisits the true story of Agnes Magnúsdottir, the last person to be executed in Iceland. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/16/2013.)

Resource 2: Picador Australia, URL: panmacmillan.com.su, Notes for Reading Groups

PICADOR

AUSTRALIA

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Notes by Robyn Sheahan-Bright

THEMATIC AND PLOT SUMMARY

‘Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own.’(p. 100)

‘God has had His chance to free me, and for reasons known to Him alone, He has pinned me to misfortune, and although I have struggled, I am run through and through with disaster; I am knifed to the hilt with fate.’(p. 84)

Burial Rites is a deeply moving account of a convicted woman’s last days as she struggles to maintain her equilibrium whilst confronting her death. Telling stories is one way of doing this, as Agnes preserves in these memories her claim to be remembered. God has not been kind to Agnes, whose life has been blighted by fate, and yet she is blessed with a fierce intelligence and a will to survive. Her search for the love she has been denied has resulted in her conviction. In this factional work, Hannah Kent draws on the story of the last woman to be publicly beheaded in Iceland. She has woven together the facts of the case with her own creative interpretation, both to fill the gaps and to create a thrilling account of this tragic story set against the moody backdrop of Icelandic extremities of weather. It is also about how records both reveal the facts, and obscure the humanity of what actually happened, and how someone like Agnes might have found herself in this place and time. Rites for the dead or for the living? This novel is an elegy to Agnes and to all those whom life has treated with scant care and attention.

In 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, together with teenagers Fridrik Sigurdsson and Sigga (Sigrídur) Gudmundsdóttir, was accused of the brutal murders of Natan Ketilsson and Pétur Jónsson at Illugastadir in Iceland. After preliminary proceedings, the District Commissioner Björn Blöndal then resolved to lodge her with the family of Jón Jónsson (District Officer), his wife Margrét and daughters Steina (Steinvör) and Lauga (Sigurlaug) at Kornsá in the months leading up to her death. The family is shocked and deeply concerned about the plan, but cannot refuse the official order. Ironically, Agnes had been fostered to this house as a child and now at 33 has returned. ‘But poverty scrapes these homes down until they all look the same, and they all have in common the absence of things that ought to be there. I might as well have been at one place all my life.’ (p. 71) The Commissioner also informed Assistant Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson that Agnes had specifically requested him as her spiritual advisor; so Tóti became her confessor, and resolved to offer her salvation: ‘We are all God’s children ... I will save her.’(p. 32) He later defends his decision to allow her to tell him her story: ‘It has become apparent to me that the condemned requires means other than religious rebuke to acquaint herself with death and prepare for her meeting with the Lord.’(p. 165) Meanwhile, Fridrik awaited execution elsewhere, and Sigga was advised by Reverend Jóhann Tómasson, and was later pardoned at the intervention of Blöndal to remain in prison. Jón told Tóti that Jón Bjarnason wanted to execute the killers, but that Gudmundur Ketilsson, Natan’s brother, was the man whom Blöndal wanted to swing the axe (p. 106). Each of Blöndal’s decisions evinced his brutally dispassionate wielding of power, and were calculated to achieve both emotional and physical pain.

Agnes has not had a happy life. She was abandoned as a child by her mother who had had a series of illegitimate births, and was taken in as a foster child and servant by a number of families. Agnes tells Assistant Rev. Tóti that Jón Bjarnason, a farmer, was her father, not the hapless servant Magnús Magnússon who was named on her birth record (p. 109). Once abandoned, her sibling Jóas was lost to her and baby Helga (pp. 120-2) later died. Her only happy memory is of the foster family Inga and Björn at Kornsa (p. 122), where ironically she now resides with Jón Jónsson’s family. She did meet her brother Jóas (p. 186) again but he later decamped with her savings. She then went to Illugastadir to work for Natan, with whom she had embarked on a passionate affair. There she was greeted by the teenage servant Sigga (pp. 225-6) who shocked her by informing her that she was to be the servant to Sigga (p. 228). Meanwhile, Rósa Gudmundsdóttir (p. 180), Natan’s former married lover, left baby Thóranna (p 250) with Natan, Agnes and Sigga. Agnes gradually realised that Natan was sleeping with Sigga as well, and when he began to spurn her advances and to threaten her, Agnes found herself once again at the mercy of cruel fate, and was forced to flee with nothing. Her involvement in the murder was based on circumstantial evidence, and thus she found herself again dependent on strangers.

Ambivalence and truth lie at this novel’s heart, for the two narrative accounts of Agnes’s life leading up to the murders lie on shifting ground. ‘Nothing is simple.’ (p. 67) Both accounts are truthful, but in one she chooses to leave out those private things she doesn’t wish to tell Tóti. The public at large believe in a third narrative – that she is a conniving murderess rather than a victim of circumstances. ‘No such thing as truth,’ Agnes said, standing up. ‘I’ve told the truth and you can see for yourself how it has served me.’ (p. 110) Similarly, records of life histories of people like Agnes are often oblique in what they reveal, and her actions are not easy to read. The ‘gnarled family trees that grow in this valley, where the branches rope about one another, studded with thorns’ (p. 120) are fraught with secrets and lies. After months living with the family, an official arrives to take the names of those in the Jónsson household and carelessly records her name as Agnes Jónsdóttir (p. 232) for the Parish register, as yet another example of how records are not always accurate or precise.

Many people including women, children and the poor at this time, and in this place were brutally dispossessed. ‘The uninhabited places are as cruel as any executioner.’(p. 70) Agnes is one of the lost souls in this landscape of deprivation and poverty, for from her abandonment as a child she has been abused and neglected in an unequal society that often treated pauper children badly. Her life before the murder was desperately impoverished. She reveals (p. 178) the extent of her physical and sexual abuse at the hands of those who imprisoned her: the inventory of the two female prisoners’ possessions (pp. 140-1) is pathetic in its paucity; her abuse is clear in her bruises, and in her filthy condition, and the lack of proper institutional care for inmates is evident in the fact that when she is taken to her final placement they travel all day with no food or water.

Death is the subject of this novel, which in effect delivers the last rites to the woman at its centre. ‘I have been in the killing pen for months.’(p. 203) Agnes has harboured guilt over her statement that she wished she could die, after Inga died, and feels guilt too that perhaps she hugged the baby too closely and caused its death (p. 150): ‘Good thing, then, that there is no one left to love. No one left to bury.’(p.150) Death and images of the grim reaper are prevalent given the looming beheading of Agnes: ‘I watch you, says the scythe’ (p. 104), and Tóti ‘looks like a skeleton’ (p. 315) Agnes tells Natan that the space between the stars is the ‘Soul asylum’ (p. 220) which is a powerful expression of her belief in the spiritual. She speaks of the fresh-faced Steina who ‘knows only the tree of life. She has not seen its twisted roots pawing stones and coffins.’ (p. 178) In contrast, Agnes has seen too many deaths in her life.

Dreams, portents and superstitions are rife in this work. Natan may be a genius or a charlatan. Agnes is suspected of being a witch. Wisdom may be simply old wives’ tales. Dreams may be portents or simply dreams. Reality and superstition are intimates, since for every magic proposition there is an explanation, which reflects reality. Agnes is regarded by several locals as a witch because of her healing powers and her reputation as a murderer. Ingibjörg suggests that Róslín’s baby and family are at risk (p. 116); Steina and Lauga are opposite in their reactions to Agnes (p. 117), for whereas Steina is intrigued by Agnes, Lauga is fearful of her and blames her for (p. 210) tainting the family and ruining their marriage prospects; Agnes dreams of Tóti (pp. 183-4); Lauga relates Natan’s dreams (pp. 213-4); Natan sees ‘death waves’ and feels premonitions (p. 261). The novel is a maelstrom of references to death and loss.

This Icelandic landscape is bleak and unforgiving and yet eerily beautiful, and in this novel acts as a metaphorical backdrop to all that befalls Agnes. Exteriors are treacherous with freezing ice, snow, and gale-force winds, and interiors are just as threatening with damp, mold, and a fetid atmosphere created by the constantly smoking fires which are fuelled by dried dung. Margrét is literally dying from the environment in which she lives; pregnant women such as Róslín are endangered; even young Tóti may not survive another winter. But when the novel describes the beauty of this landscape it is just as memorable. The beauty of the northern lights (p. 143) or the days outside in the whiteness are evocatively descriptive of the spiritual hope which keeps Agnes going.

This novel considers a patriarchal society in which male bureaucrats dominate the local economy, religion and politics. ‘María told me that men might do as they please, and that they are all Adams, naming everything under the sun.’(p. 192) Blöndal had complete power over his constituents and the events which unfold are largely due to his intervention and unyielding belief in his own infallibility. To a certain extent, impoverished women like Agnes had little control over their lives.

Storytelling and the power invested in the telling of tales and memories is a strong theme in this novel. ‘But these times are not saga times, Margrét had thought. This woman is not a saga woman. She’s a landless workmaid raised on a porridge of moss and poverty.’ (p. 52) Despite her impoverished background, Agnes loves reading, poetry (p. 190) and telling stories. Further examples include Natan’s story (p. 191); and the various references to the power of Poet-Rósa’s poetry: ‘Her poetry made lamps out of people’ (p. 248). There’s a strong suggestion that Agnes might have enjoyed book learning had she been given the opportunity, as she is clearly well-educated despite her neglected upbringing.

Yearning for love is a central theme in this story. Agnes has been seeking her lost mothers all her life. She was abandoned by her birth mother of whom she has only vague memories (p. 111), and then lost her foster mother Inga to childbirth (pp. 145-9). She was later hardened by enduring years of loveless foster placements and then met Natan (p. 103) who awoke in her a desire for love. ‘For the first time in my life, someone saw me, and I loved him because he made me feel I was enough.’(p. 221) ‘I cannot remember not knowing Natan. I cannot think of what it was not to love him. To look at him and realise I had found what I had not known I was hungering for.’ (p. 194) His betrayal and death made her even steelier: ‘I am determined to close myself to the world, to tighten my heart and hold onto what has not yet been stolen from me. I cannot let myself slip away.’(p. 29) But Agnes sees herself as doomed for being too clever (p. 131) and too unlucky in life: ‘I thought I could pretend’ (p. 128). Her chats with Tóti are painful, as ‘talking to him only reminds me of how everything in my life has worked against me, and how unloved I have been.’ (p. 120) Agnes’s life has always been heading in this direction. For ‘if no one will say your name, you are forgotten. I am forgotten.’ (p. 320)

Fate and destiny have determined Agnes’s end. ‘There was nowhere else to go.’ (p. 265)

WRITING STYLE

1. Faction is the deliberate extrapolation on a real event or story written in a fictional voice. Hannah Kent has researched the background to this story exhaustively and then added the novelist’s perspective by imagining Agnes’s musings on her own life, and by developing imagined characters based on the historical documents and accounts written by or about some of these characters. How does this imaginative use of history extend our understanding of the actual events?

2. This novel is structured as alternate or dual narratives in which Agnes’s story is told in third person and her own view of her life and incarceration is told in first person. When she comes to tell Tóti her story she relates a different version to her own memories; she keeps private her passion for Natan. Discuss the effect this alternating view and perspective has on thematic development and plotting suspense in the work.

Read the interview with Hannah Kent (Bookseller and Publisher 8 February 2013, http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/DetailPage.aspx?type=featureitem&id=26248 She explains how she wrote this and makes some surprising observations about the process.

3. A variety of other texts including letters, official documents and poems are included in the novel as well: Blöndal’s Public Notice (p. 3); Letter to Rev. Jóhann Tomasson (p. 4); letter to Assis. Rev T. Jónsson (pp. 5-7); brief report on Agnes noted in the Ministerial records by P. Bjarnason (p. 33); note from the Supreme Court Trials (p. 57); letter to Deputy-Governor of North-east Iceland from B. Blöndal (pp. 85-6).

Poet-Rósa’s poem to Agnes (p. 113); Poet-Rósa’s to Natan (p. 197); Anonymous Poem (p. 223); Rosa’s testimony (pp. 243-4); Clerk’s account of interview (p 267); Laxdæla Saga (p. 293); letter re execution (pp. 304-7); Blöndal’s order to district to attend execution (pp. 308-9); letter to Blöndal from Pétursson (p. 310); Icelandic burial hymn (p. 311); Epilogue containing Blöndal’s dispassionate report on execution (pp. 329-30). Choose one of these texts and discuss in relation to the overall themes of the novel.

4. This novel personifies landscape in a visceral way, e.g., ‘The cut grass makes a gasping sound’ (p. 103); ‘the wind hurling ice at our home’ (p. 144); ‘Autumn fell upon the valley like a gasp.’(p. 198); ‘the dark intestine of the river in front of us.’ (p. 207); ‘huge tangles of seaweed float in the bay and look like the hair of the drowned.’(p. 227); ‘The dark comes; it has settled down in these parts like a bruise in the flesh of the earth,’ (p. 254); ‘the clouds hang still in the air like dead bodies.’ (p. 322) Human actions are alternately expressed in extremely organic language as well: ‘it was only later that our tongues produced landslides’ (p. 22); ‘Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another.’(p. 111); ‘He would give me springtime’ (p. 222); ‘the way he grappled for my body like a buoy in the water.’(p. 256); ‘we are all underwater and I cannot swim.’ (p. 323) The bleak and yet verdant landscape of Iceland is ever present thematically in the novel: ‘Snow lay over the valley like linen, like a shroud waiting for the dead body of sky that slumped overhead.’(p. 324) Discuss.

5. Aphorisms in this novel are drawn from the lore of the Icelandic past, and the wisdom of such stories and fables is a strong riff or current throughout the work; e.g., ‘They pick a mouse to tame a cat.’(p. 10); ‘A witch often has fair skin.’ (p. 52) ‘No doves come from ravens’ eggs’ (p. 117); ‘ “The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe,” ’(p. 175). Chose one of these, or other aphorisms mentioned in the text, and discuss its meaning and relevance to the novel as a whole.

6. Symbols are significant in this novel. Fire and ice, for example, are opposite and yet twin poles of the suffering endured by Agnes. ‘It was the drop of the match. I did not see that we were surrounded by tinder until I felt it burst into flames.’(p. 195) ‘The burnt child fears the fire.’ (p. 251) ‘Flames were licking at his skin, smoke pouring into his mouth.’ (p. 252) Margrét tells Agnes that her mother believed that as long as a fire was burning in a house it meant the devil couldn’t get in (p. 271). What other symbols did you notice in reading this work?

THE AUTHOR

Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. As a teenager she travelled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange, where she first heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir. Hannah is the co- founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. Burial Rites is her first novel.

See her website for further information. http://hannahkentauthor.com/

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. ‘I WAS WORST TO THE ONE I LOVED BEST.’ Laxdæla Saga This is a statement resonant with the regrets we all feel for taking for granted those whom we love; for not being careful enough or kind enough to those we care deeply for. But how does it relate to Agnes, to whom no one has been terribly kind? Discuss.

2. Read the passage ‘I remain quiet ... I will not be there.’ (pp. 28-9) What does it reveal about Agnes and how she perceives the world’s view of her?

3. Natan is a chauvinist and arguably typical of men at that time. eg ‘Like Natan used to say, once you let it in, it doesn’t leave you alone. Like a woman, he said. The sea is a nag.’ (p. 36) However there are several portraits of men which reveal very different attitudes. For example Jón and Tóti both seem very caring towards women. Are they exceptions to the rule?

4. ‘Natan did not believe in sin. He said that it is the flaw in the character that makes a person.’ (p.100) This is an interesting statement which might be further discussed.

5. ‘Most good people are soon enough underground.’ (p. 137) Good works don’t guarantee longevity. Discuss.

6. Fate and destiny are major themes in this work, for Agnes seems fated to have come to the end she does. Could she have escaped this destiny? Was there a turning point in her life which she might have avoided?

7. Death is a major theme in this work, but it is also about life and living. When Agnes faces the day of her execution all she wants to do is live, despite the harrowing nature of the life she has endured. Discuss.

8. Discuss the notion of capital punishment. Read a brief article about its history in Iceland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iceland [Note: Copy of the article follows this Source.]

9. A film Agnes by Egill Edvardsson (1995) has been made about this story. You may be able to source that film and compare it to this novel.

10. Blöndal is the real villain of this piece. His dispassionate communications with those whom he controls are filled with venom and spite. What did you make of his decision to lodge Agnes with District Officer Jón and his family? Why did he do that?

11. Are Steina, Lauga, and Margrét changed by Agnes’s time with them? Has her fate changed theirs in any way?

12. Tóti’s interest in Agnes’s case begins as a young cleric wanting to prove himself to his elders, to a sincere desire to defend a condemned woman. His growth in compassion and his readiness to stand up to his seniors is one of the most significant themes in this novel. Discuss.

13. Gossip, rumor, and prejudice determine Agnes’s end. She is ‘hung’ on the strength of a reputation, which is largely conjecture and linked to her poverty. Discuss.

14. Hannah Kent calls her novel a ‘dark love letter to Iceland’ (p. 337) in her Acknowledgements. What does she mean by this? Did you read the novel in this way?

15. Agnes goes to her death holding Tóti’s hand, for they have discovered a deep need for each other. Is this a story then about the loneliness of our end in life? Or does it celebrate the comfort that a person can bring to the dying? Discuss.

BURIAL RITES

Hannah Kent
Picador Australia
Trade paperback - ISBN: 9781742612829

These Notes may be printed or viewed for your own private, non-commercial use.

This material is copyright and may not be repackaged, resold or posted electronically on networks without prior written permission from Pan Macmillan Australia. Pan Macmillan Australia Level 25, 1 Market Street, Sydney NSW 2000

www.picador.com.au - 2013 Pan Macmillan Australia

Resource 3: Article, “Capital punishment in Iceland” from Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last modified on 23 October 2014 at 19:06

URL: en.wikipedia.org

The medieval Icelandic Commonwealth (930–1262), having no central executive powers, did not apply capital punishment. It was, however, possible for the Althing to declare a man réttdræpur (English: "rightfully killable"). This made the killing of the person in question legal—although the executive power was invested in whosoever cared to pursue it, instead of being the duty of state officials.
Contents

1 History

2 Last execution

3 Abolition

4 References

5 Sources

History

According to a plaque at Thingvellir National Park, 72 people are known to have been executed in the period from 1602 to 1750. Execution methods included beheading, hanging, burning at the stake, and drowning. Whereas men were more commonly beheaded or hanged, supposedly-wayward women were instead lowered into the river directly next to the Law Rock itself with ropes, to either freeze to death or drown.

Later, when Iceland fell under the Danish Crown, Danish laws applied, more or less. The frequency of capital punishment increased considerably with the adoption of Lutheranism in the 17th century, but gradually disappeared by the mid-19th century.

Last execution

The last application of capital punishment in Iceland took place on January 12, 1830, in Vatnsdalshólar in Húnavatnssýsla. The convicts were Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a farmhand, and Friðrik Sigurðsson, a farmer's son from Katadalur. Their crime was the murder of two men on March 14, 1828: Natan Ketilsson, a farmer of Illugastaðir, and Pétur Jónsson of the "Geitaskarð" farm. They were executed by beheading.

This case was the basis for a 1995 Icelandic film Agnes by Egill Eðvarðsson and novel, Burial Rites by Australian writer Hannah Kent (May 2013).^[1]

Abolition

Four years later, the last execution of an Icelander was carried out in Denmark. After 1830, dozens of Icelanders were found guilty of a crime punishable by death. Most of the cases were infanticides, where women who were unable to care for their newly-born illegitimate children would kill them. However, they were all granted a clemency by the King of Denmark. In 1869, a new law took effect in Iceland, harmonising Icelandic and Danish law—this law abolished the death penalty for lesser offences. In 1928 the death penalty was abolished entirely, and has not since had a place in Icelandic law.

Since the 1995 revision of the constitution, the reintroduction of capital punishment is unconstitutional.

Resource 4: Hannah Kent website, URL: hannahkentauthor.com

Introduction to Hannah Kent website for Burial Rites

In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes.

Only Tóti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes’s spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul.
As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes’s ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn’t she?
Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love.
In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland’s formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

Cover Art

There is a wonderful display of the various cover art created to showcase the novel. Which is your favorite? - mem

Interviews with Hannah Kent

2 December 2014 Interview: NTB Kultur 'Et Mørkt Kjærlighetsbrev til Island'

21 September 2013   Interview: Sydney Morning Herald 'Critics come to praise this writer'
4 September 2013   Interview: Metro 'Burial Rites author Hannah Kent'
3 September 2013   Interview: American Booksellers Association 'September’s #1 Indie Next List Pick'
24 August 2013   Interview: Female First 'Burial Rites by Hannah Kent'
18 August 2013   Interview: The Sunday Times 'Murder in the Dark'
29 May 2013   Interview: The West Australian 'Love Letter to Iceland'
4 May 2013   Interview: The Age 'The cold light of day'
29 April 2013   Interview: The Reading Room 'A Different Shade of Icelandic Murder Mystery'
26 April 2013   Interview: Dymocks Booklovers Podcast
20 April 2013   Interview: The Australian 'Hannah Kent's debut novel Burial Rites is written in cold blood'
20 April 2013   Interview: The Adelaide Advertiser 'Light in the Dark'
8 February 2013   Interview: Bookseller + Publisher 'A dark love letter to Iceland'
6 January 2013   Interview: Morgunblaðið 'Mótsagnakennd Agnes'

Book Reviews – Burial Rites

29 September 2014 Review: Kvennablaðið 'Það sem ég er að lesa er stórkostleg heimildarskáldsaga um ógæfusama konu, Agnesi Magnúsdóttur og ást hennar, glæp og aftöku eins og segir í íslenskum undirtitli bókarinnar.'

4 October 2013 Review: Washington Independent Review of Books 'Brilliant'
24 September 2013 Review: Express Milwaukee ' Burial Rites is beautiful and compelling'
24 September 2013 Review: MLive 'Haunting'
23 September 2013 Review: The Missourian 'Atmospheric and engrossing'
23 September 2013 Review: The New Yorker 'Gorgeously atmospheric'
22 September 2013 Review: The San Francisco Chronicle 'Kent ... conjures a gripping narrative of love and murder'
13 September 2013 Review: Daily Express 'Agnes will stay with you long after the last page has been turned'
12 September 2013 Review: Daily Mail '... what impresses most about this novel is the skill and power with which Kent conveys the bite of poverty, hunger and loneliness'
10 September 2013 Review: The Telegraph '5 stars'
1 September 2013 Review: The Sunday Express 'An exceptional debut. Verdict: 5/5'
31 August 2013 Review: The Guardian 'The announcement of a writer to watch'
25 August 2013 Review: The Observer 'Burial Rites is a debut of rare sophistication and

beauty – a simple but moving story, meticulously researched and hauntingly told'

18 August 2013 Review: The Sunday Times 'A remarkable achievement ... Burial Rites will stand comparison with Margaret Atwood’sAlias Grace and Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang.'
11 August 2013 Review: The Herald Scotland 'Burial Rites is a highly impressive debut'
29 June 2013 Review: Otago Daily Times 'Bleak tale, beautifully told'
23 June 2013 Review: A Bigger Brighter World 'A smoothly-told and convincing tale in which the dark shadows strike base notes rather than casting an airless pall'
19 June 2013 Review: InDaily Adelaide 'Beautifully depicted, the harsh Icelandic landscape creates a chilling backdrop for the unfolding tale, while Kent’s gothic-style narrative enhances the mood and tension'
28 May 2013 Review: Book Thingo 'I was so drawn to the characters’ stories that I felt the chill on their skin and harshness of the landscape'
25 May 2013 Review: Sydney Morning Herald 'You may be lured to this book by its lurid subject matter but you will stay for the delicate incantations of an inhospitable place'
20 May 2013 Review: Melbourne Review 'It is an elegy for freedoms extending from the most fundamental - the freedom to live - to living free from attendant oppressions of poverty, powerlessness and misogyny'
17 May 2013 Review: Publishers Weekly 'Kent’s debut delves deep into Scandinavian history, not to mention matters of storytelling, guilt, and silence'
6 May 2013 Review: South Coast Register 'Novel is a modern masterpiece'
2 May 2013 Review: The Newtown Review of Books 'Burial Rites delivers. It is infused with the darkness of an Arctic winter, yet radiates an unmistakable human warmth'
1 May 2013 Review: Australian Book Review 'Kent's instinct for story is on bright display in Burial Rites'
28 April 2013 Review: The Australian 'Kent is only 27 but has an uncanny knack for narrative'
24 April 2013 Review: Readings 'Burial Rites, and its poetic, subsuming world, is a beautifully executed work of the genre'
31 March 2013 Review: Kirkus (STARRED REVIEW) 'A magical exercise in artful literary fiction'
8 February 2013 Review: Bookseller + Publisher

PRAISE FOR BURIAL RITES

'So gripping I wanted to rush through the pages, but so beautifully written I wanted to linger over every sentence. Hannah Kent's debut novel is outstanding.' Madeline Miller, Orange Prize-winning author of The Song of Achilles

'Burial Rites is an accomplished gem, its prose as crisp and sparkling as its northern setting.' Geraldine Brooks, author of Year of Wonders

'Hannah Kent has crafted a genre all her own. Burial Rites is both a compelling thriller and a profound meditation on a mythic landscape.' Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean

‘A compelling read, heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure.’ Anne Berry, author of The Hungry Ghosts

‘Spell-binding and moving, it’s the kind of novel that gets under your skin, moves your blood, your heart. A bravura debut.’ Megan Abbott, author of The End of Everything and Dare Me

‘Hannah Kent's gorgeous and haunting Burial Rites will touch your heart.’ Charlotte Rogan, author of The Lifeboat

Resource 5: An Article by Hannah Kent from her website: “Get a Library Card: My Rules for Writing” November 26, 2014

Earlier this year I had the great pleasure of being a guest of the 2014 Emerging Writers' Festival in Melbourne. As one of the five EWF ambassadors (the others being the superb Benjamin Law, Krissy Kneen, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Felix Nobis), I appeared on several panels during the National Writers' Conference. The first panel was called 'The 5 x 5 Rules of Writing', where the other ambassadors and I each shared the writing advice we wish we had known when we started out.

I thought I'd reprint my five 'rules' here, for my own reference as much as anything. These are five things I continually need to be reminded of, and they never fail to help me remember how and why I write.

READ

This is perhaps the simplest, most worthwhile piece of advice I can give any of you today, and this is why it's the first of my five.

Read.
To be a good writer you must, first and foremost, be a good reader. How else will you learn what to do? Read as much as possible, as often as possible, and if you read something you like, or something that makes you laugh, or something that moves you in a strange, ineffable way, ask why. Re-read it. Read it aloud. Pay attention to the use of words, and the narrative voice, and the comic timing. If you don't understand words, splurge on a really great dictionary and look those words up. The more words you know, the greater your control over language.
Read everything. How else will you work out what is good and what is bad? Give your time to Thomas Hardy, Dostoevsky, Doris Lessing and Dickens, but also read debut novels, genre fiction, contemporary fiction, history books, plays, TV scripts, poetry and memoirs. If you can't afford new books, buy second-hand books. If you can't afford second-hand books, get a library card. Get a library card anyway.
I've always loved reading, but I don't think I ever understood how crucial it is to bettering writing practice until now. If I'm writing and I find myself in need of inspiration, or renewed focus, I will always go and read. Nine times out of ten I return to my work refreshed and exhilarated.
I used to worry that if I read a great deal while writing I would somehow mimic the authors I was reading. Now I realise that this rarely happens, and if it does, then I'll probably be the only person who notices it. Read.

CULTIVATE EMPATHY

My second piece of advice is a bit of a strange one, because it's also a life skill: to cultivate empathy. Empathy is quite different from sympathy, which is a feeling of pity for others' misfortune. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Empathy is about putting yourself in other people's shoes.

The benefits of empathy for a writer are manifold. Empathy will enable you not only to write about characters who are very different from yourself as an individual, but to understand them too. It will help you create character motivation, backgrounds, voice. Empathy will enable you to more fully understand that every person is the protagonist of his or her life. Every character, even if they have limited page space, is - off the page - the central player in their own drama.
Empathy will help you realise that everyone wants something, and that conflict - so crucial in nealy all genres of writing - often arises when desires cannot be met because of external circumstances, because of an individual's contradictory desires, or because other people have demands that are oppositional. This is as true of life, as it is of fiction.
Empathy, put simply, will give you a keener insight into the human heart.
There are many ways to improve your capacity for empathy. Reading literary fiction was recently proved to increase one's ability to decipher others' emotions and motives, or in other words, one's ability to empathise.
You can also practice empathy in every social interaction you engage in, simply by trying to see where other people are coming from. I recommend people-watching from time to time. Ask yourself what someone might be feeling and why. Look at people on the tram and try to work out what they want. Empathy will help you forget yourself, so that you might write about wider worlds. Empathy will help you move beyond the parameters of your own individual experience. It will enable you to not only write what you know, but to write convincingly about what you want to know.

WORK HARD, BE DISCIPLINED

My third piece of advice is, again, simple. Work hard. It's one thing to have a proclivity towards writing, or even an aptitude for it, but raw talent doesn't count for much in the long run without hard work.

In recent years I've had an opportunity to reflect on what quality has best served me in my own writing. I used to be very thankful for what I saw as my knack for literature. When I was a teenager I loved English classes because I found them easy. I understood basic rhyme and meter on an intuitive level, and I could come up with some fairly good sentences without much stress. I always assumed that it would be this flair for language that would secure - one day, fingers crossed - publication.
I was wrong. If there is one quality I have consistently drawn upon to get any kind of writing in print, it was not a gift with language. It was diligence.
If you want to write, you have to be diciplined. You have to put the hours in, even when you don't feel like it. You especially have to learn to write when you are uninspired. You have to take your work seriously, and this means setting aside time for it, preferably on a regular basis. This often means making sacrifices.
Working hard and becoming disciplined in your writing also means developing a professional attitude. This means that you forget your ego. It means that you actively seek and pursue opportunities to further develop your skills, or that you push yourself out of your comfort zone. A professional attitude means that you hold yourself accountable, that you honour deadlines - even those you set for yourself - and that, in your dealings with others - be them other writers, editors, or anyone else in the industry - you are respectful, considerate and well-mannered.

So be diligent, because diligence will serve you better than lashings of natural talent. Be industrious, and pursue your writing with careful and persistent effort.

EXPECT IT TO BE DIFFICULT & DON'T EXPECT TO FEEL READY

My next tip is something I wish someone had told me ten years ago. Don't wait until you feel ready to write. Start now. Expect writing to be difficult.

It seems obvious, perhaps, to say this, but still, it's worth saying. Writing is hard. It's really, bloody hard. It comprises long hours of solitude, re-writing and self-doubt, and is the kind of occupation that is impossible to feel ready for, because so much is necessarily uncertain, unknown and unexplored.
I had never expected writing a novel to be easy, by any means, but I always thought that eventually I would work out what I was doing, and this would mean I'd find confidence in my ability and my voice. When I was halfway through the first draft of Burial Rites, and I was still plagued by a lack of confidence, I realised that my doubts about my writing probably weren't going to go away. And to be honest with you, they still haven't. I still find writing hard.
The reason I'm telling you this is because I wish someone had told me how common it is for even established writers to have self-doubt. I remember, four years ago, reading that Sarah Waters had a 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster in her study. It was a light bulb moment for me, because the presence of this poster implied that Sarah Waters had moments when she was not calm, when she felt out of control, or ill-equipped to write. In other words, the poster implied that she had the same moments of fear and insecurity I did.
For many years, I felt that my writing was dependent on confidence. I remember waiting to feel ready. I remember holding out for my insecurities to ease. Thank God I started writing anyway, with all my self-doubt and apprehension, otherwise I'd still be waiting.
If you have anxieties about your writing, and you're waiting for them to go away before you properly begin, my advice is to stop waiting and begin now. You won't feel ready. Writing is difficult, and your doubt won't dissipate overnight. Be patient with yourself. What will happen is that you'll become accustomed to the doubt and difficulty. You'll accept it as an intrinsic part of the writing process, and this preparedness will help you eventually ignore it.
So acknowledge to yourself that writing is rarely easy, and that time doesn't make it easier. Brace yourself for the hard slog, be brave and do it anyway. After all, it is writing's difficulty which makes it beautiful. Don't expect it to be anything else. Just keep calm, carry on, keep going.

WRITE FROM THE SOUL

Finally, I'd like to say this. Growing up, I heard writers say that it is necessary to write from the heart. I'd like to tweak this a little for you now, although for some, it may mean the same thing.

Write from the soul.
Write from the deepest place within yourself, a place that is also wholly yourself.
This doesn't mean necessarily that you must put your own story in whatever you write. Writing from the soul means to write about that which moves you at a profound level. It means to write about something which means something to you, or to write in order to discover meaning.
Writing from the soul means to have purity of intention. Awards, advances, critical recognition - these things may come along, and they can be wonderful. But don't write for these things. You'll know when you're writing from the soul because the writing becomes the reward. And I promise you this: it is far more fulfilling than a cheque or good review, or even publication.
Writing from the soul means to be yourself when you write. It means doing it for the love of it, despite the difficulty, the hard work, the self-doubt and the increasingly atrocious posture. And when I say love, I don't mean a casual fondness. I mean that you love writing with a kind of wild desperation, an intensity that both terrifies and exhilarates you. When I say write for the love of it, I mean write because there is no other way for you to breathe.

So write from the soul. Write for yourself. Write for the love of it, always.

Resource 6: booktopiablog, URL: blog.booktopia.com.au

Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites, answers Ten Terrifying Questions

Posted on May 10, 2013 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

The Booktopia Book Guru asks Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites, Ten Terrifying Questions

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1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?
I was the first baby born in Adelaide on the Easter Sunday of 1985. My parents raised me and my little sister amid the gums and oak trees of the Adelaide Hills, where I spent a lot of my time running around in paddocks, building cubbies, and attending the local schools. I had an idyllic childhood.
2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?
An easy question! I’ve had an unwavering desire to be a writer since I was very small. By the time I was twelve it was certainly a burning ambition – I started my own newspaper, called The Owl, which I distributed to about fifteen friends, publishing articles and stories. Unfortunately the little newspaper had long folded by the time I reached eighteen, but I was still keenly writing poems, stories and plays. I was in Iceland for most of my eighteenth year, and the long hours of darkness in winter were very amenable to long hours spent scribbling. I’m not yet thirty – I have about three years to go before I get there – but no doubt I’ll still want to write then, too. I can’t not write. It’s as simple as that.
3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now?
I believed I knew myself completely, that I would never surprise myself. I believed my character to be static. Now I know this to be false: we can never understand ourselves wholly. There is always the possibility of change, of re-creation, and of growth, particularly when confronted with hardship. I now believe in the continual evolution of selfhood, and that we are all far more complicated than we believe ourselves to be.
4. What were three works of art – book or painting or piece of music, etc – you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?
The first book that impacted me in a lasting way was Little Women by Louise M. Alcott. I read it on the brink of adolescence, and loved the characters so much that I kept re-reading it, almost as if it were a manifesto – I found comfort in the wholesome themes of kindness and morality. It was the first book I read where the characters became as dear to me as my real friends. Little Women was also the book where I started to seriously consider the idea of a writing career, probably because I saw myself in Jo.
More recently I’ve found that music, particularly that of singer-songwriters such as Laura Marling, influences my writing. I have a lot of admiration for the way in which these musicians can convey whole narratives in a few short lyrics. I admire the concision that requires; their ability to give a three-minute song such incredible depth of feeling. It’s like aural Impressionism – it’s all about suggestion and atmosphere. It inspires me to attempt the same in my writing.
5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a novel?
I ought to confess something. When I first decided to write the story that would become Burial Rites, it was going to be a verse novel. The first lines I wrote of the story were poems. I soon discovered, however, that it’s not so easy to convey the unfamiliar world of nineteenth-century Iceland – the setting of my book – to a reader in a few concise stanzas. The novel form, on the other hand, offered me the opportunity to more completely build this strange and unfamiliar world. It gave me the space I needed to plumb the story and its possibilities as deeply as possible.
6. Please tell us about your latest novel…
In 1829, in Iceland’s far north, a servant woman called Agnes Magnusdottir was found guilty of murdering her employer as he lay sleeping. Immediately condemned by the small community she grew up in, she was sentenced to death. My novel, Burial Rites, is based on these true events.
In my book, the story begins with Agnes being taken to the small farm of Kornsa, where she is to remain in custody until the date of her execution. Here she meets the farmer, his wife, and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoid speaking with Agnes. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed as her spiritual guardian, is compelled to try and understand her. As winter descends and the hardships of rural life force everyone to work side by side, the family’s attitude to Agnes starts to change, until one night, she begins to tell her side of the story, and they realise that all is not as they had assumed…
I first heard the story of ‘the Illugastadir murders’ when I was living in Iceland as an exchange student. Struck by what I thought was the unfair representation of Agnes as a ‘monster’ – an undoubtedly evil, manipulative schemer – in most records, I researched her life story and wrote Burial Rites out of a desire to find her humanity.
7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?
I hope that Agnes remains with them long after they turn the final page. Her story has haunted me for ten years, and by the time I completed the first draft she was as vivid and as close to me as any member of my family. I hope readers are similarly haunted. I hope she lingers for them, and that they are reminded anew of the ways in which history is fallible, and all stories unreliable.

8. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?
That’s a tough question! There are many authors I deeply admire, and whose work I return to again and again, for very different reasons. Margaret Atwood is an author I adore – I have immense respect for her command of language, and the intelligence behind even the most (seemingly) straightforward of her narratives. I think Angela Carter was a genius. I admire authors who can offer insight into the human condition; who write books that give you heart-stopping moments of I thought that was just me. For me, those books have included those by Virginia Woolf and Janet Frame. Thomas Hardy is a favourite, as is Halldor Laxness. Annie Proulx was an inspiration when I was younger. I’ve become very enthusiastic about Hilary Mantel, Emma Donoghue, Edward St Aubyn and Ron Rash in recent years. Gosh, there are so many – these are only some who come to mind.
9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?
My most recent goal was to be published before I was thirty. Now that I’m in the very fortunate position of having attained that, I’m looking forward to challenging myself in new ways. I would love to be able to speak several languages. At the moment I’m trying Swedish.
10. What advice do you give aspiring writers?
To be a writer I think you must, first and foremost, be a reader. Read as much as possible, as often as possible. Remember to be professional, and foster discipline. Write even when you feel uninspired. Be aware. Practice empathy.
Hannah, thank you for playing.

Resource 7: “Burial Rites and the loneliness of the long-distance writer” by Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent, the author of Burial Rites, on how she wrote the Photograph: Hannah Kent

Monday 3 June 2013 22.39 EDT

Just over two years ago, I was – to put it plainly – shitting myself. It was January 2011, and the novel I needed to write, the historical novel that was to be the creative component of my PhD, could no longer be avoided. The problem was, I had no idea how to write a book.

I first heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland. It was 2002, I was 17 years old, and I had left Adelaide for Sauðárkrókur an isolated fishing village, where I would live for 12 months. This small town lies snug in the side of a fjord: a clutch of little buildings facing an iron-grey sea, the mountains looming behind.

When I arrived it was January, and the days were gripped by darkness, 20 hours at a time. There were no trees. The town’s houses were hostage to snow, and in the distance the north Atlantic Ocean met the north sky in a suggestion of oblivion. It felt like the edge of the world.
I was intensely lonely. The community was tightly knit, and I was an outsider. For the first time in my life I felt socially isolated, and my feelings of alienation were compounded by the claustrophobic winter darkness, and the constant confinement indoors. I turned to writing for company, to fill the black hours. I sought shelter in libraries, consolation in books.
It was during the first difficult months of my exchange that I travelled through a place called Vatnsdalshólar. It’s an unusual tract of landscape: a valley mouth pimpled with hillocks of earth. When I asked my host parents if the area was significant, they pointed to three small hills, nestled closely together. Over 100 years ago, they said, a woman called Agnes had been beheaded there. She was the last person to be executed in Iceland.

Photograph: Hannah Kent

I was immediately intrigued. What had she done? What had happened? Over time I discovered that Agnes was a 34-year-old servant woman who had been beheaded on 12 January 1830 for her role in the 1828 murders of two men. It seemed a tragic tale; Agnes had been unequivocally condemned. Retrospectively, I can only speculate that the strange, isolated place of Agnes’s death made me think of my own feelings of loneliness; that I thought of Agnes as a fellow outsider in a remote Icelandic community, and I identified with her in some small way.
Photograph: Hannah Kent

When I returned to Australia, as thoughts of Agnes continued to seep through the layers of my consciousness years later, it seemed logical that I make Agnes’s story the subject of my PhD.
It was, looking back, probably one of the most uninformed and ridiculous decisions I’ve ever made. Unpracticed and unskilled in any form of novel-writing or biographical research, I publicly committed myself to writing a full-length manuscript about a historical figure I knew nothing about, set in a country not my own, in a time I was utterly unfamiliar with. Twenty-four months into my PhD I realised – with no small amount of nervous gulping – that I knew only four facts about this elusive woman: her name, the date of her death, that she was a servant, and – from Icelandic naming traditions – that her father was a man called Magnús. It hardly felt like enough to write a book about.
I applied for funding to embark on an overseas field trip in Iceland, and spent six weeks there happily holed up in the national archives, museums and libraries, sifting through ministerial and parish records, censuses, maps, microfilm, logs, and local histories. I visited the sites of the murder and execution and met several Icelanders who generously told me what they knew. Agnes and her life’s sorry trajectory finally emerged from the shadows, and I returned to Australia in late 2010 with the kind of hysterical happiness bestowed only on the severely jetlagged research student who has been allowed to touch very old paper without gloves.
Photograph: Hannah Kent

As with any high, however, there comes, inevitably, the crash. Finally in possession of the facts I had yearned after for two years, I no longer had any excuse not to write my book. Even as I write this article, my hands grow sweaty in remembrance of the trepidation and terror I felt. People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd. Sure, I had written short stories before. But that, to me, was no consolation. Just because I was a cat person did not mean I knew how to conquer a beast.
I started writing the manuscript that would be Burial Rites on 24 January, and finished the first draft on 9 May. I worked most weekdays, sitting at my desk at around eight o’clock (a time, I soon discovered, when I was at my brightest and most positive), and remaining there until I had completed 1,000 words of new writing. Some days I accomplished this by 11 o’clock, and was then free to do other work, go for a walk, or to read; other days I was still sitting at the computer when night fell, my nerves shattered, and my confidence at a dangerous low.
Over time, my days fell into a welcome routine, and I discovered that, through experimentation, I could answer my own questions about how to write a book. But the fear of not knowing where I was headed and the best way to get there never abated. I had expected that at some point during the first draft a light would go on, and I would understand, finally, how to write a book. This never happened. The process was akin to blindly walking in the dark, feeling my way only by touch, and only recognising dead ends when I smacked into them.
Finishing the manuscript came as a surprise to me. I had spent most of the morning finishing the last scene, and then I realised I no longer knew what to write. There was nothing more to write. I pushed my keyboard away from me, read the last line over and over, and then – unexpectedly – burst into tears. They weren’t tears of elation, or disbelief. I was suddenly, profoundly sad. Grief-stricken, in fact. I put my head down on my desk and sobbed. The first draft was finished, and yet it felt like nothing I had expected. There was no champagne-soaked celebration or private self-congratulation. It felt like breaking up with someone I still had feelings for; I was so forlorn I could barely stand to see the document on my desktop, let alone start editing it. I cried my heart out for the rest of the day, and then put the printed manuscript under my desk. It stayed there, gathering dust, for another five months.

Photograph: Hannah Kent
Occasionally I’d wonder whether the manuscript would one day be published, but it seemed a far-off possibility. Then, in early October 2011, I had coffee with a friend. I’d spent an hour moaning over my latte about my state of pennilessness when my friend interrupted to ask whether I planned on entering my book in the new Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript award. For the next few days I worked with a delicious ruthlessness, slashing and burning all superfluous material from my manuscript. It was a week of dishevelment, of long hours and poor personal hygiene. Fifteen minutes before the competition closed, I entered the novel and its synopsis.

Winning the WAUMA award was my foot in the door; it got the novel noticed and led to further opportunities. Pippa Masson, of the literary agency Curtis Brown, took me on as a client. Geraldine Brooks agreed to mentor me, and thanks to her sound and generous advice I was able to continue drafting, modifying, cutting, adding and polishing through a few more drafts until I was ready for others to read it. Pippa pitched and sent the book to Australian publishers, and from there it leaked internationally, escalating into three separate bidding wars for ANZ, UK and US rights.
I’ve been asked why I’ve had such a dream run as a debut author – particularly in times such as these – and I understand why people want to know. However, the truth is that it is a question that troubles me, because I have no answer. Was it hard work? Well yes, that was partly it, but to say that hard work won me a publishing deal is to also suggest that unpublished writers don’t work hard enough, which is untrue and unfair. What was it then? Luck? The skilful navigation of an agent familiar with the weird and troubled waters of publishing? Yes, all of these things, perhaps. I’m not sure. I don’t even know if my publishers know. These things do, occasionally, happen. All I know is that I am very grateful that it happened to me.

• You can read a longer version of this article in volume 13 of Kill Your Darlings, the journal of which Hannah Kent is co-founder and deputy editor. Burial Rites was released last month in Australia, and will be published in the UK and US in September. Translation rights have been sold to 15 countries.

Resource 8: Barnes & Noble, URL: barnesandnoble.co,

Meet the Author

Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. As a teenager she travelled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange, where she first heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir. Hannah is the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. Burial Rites is her first novel.

Interviews & Essays

“A Conversation with Hannah Kent, Author of Burial Rites”
Burial Rites is based on the true story of an Icelandic woman convicted of murder. When did you first hear about Agnes Magnúsdóttir?
I first heard about Agnes Magnúsdóttir ten years ago, when I was living in Iceland as a seventeen-year-old exchange student. The first few months of my stay there had been quite difficult. I was living in a small Icelandic town where I felt conspicuous as a foreignor, yet also socially isolated. I didn't speak any Icelandic at that stage, it was winter, and the days were gripped by darkness for up to twenty hours at a time. It was during this early period of loneliness that I happened to drive through a very striking place called Vatnsdalur, a valley covered in hundreds of small hills. When I asked my travelling companions if the area was significant for any reason, they told me that it had been the site of the last executions in Iceland, which had taken place well over 150 years ago. Immediately curious, I asked them what had happened, and was told that a young man and woman had been led out to the hills and beheaded by broad axe for their role in the brutal murder of two sleeping men. It seemed like a dark and tragic tale, yet there was something that deeply intrigued me about the woman they mentioned: a 34 year-old servant woman called Agnes. For some strange reason I felt a kinship with her. Possibly I saw a fragment of my own experience of loneliness and social isolation in her story then, for it resonated with me immediately. I thought of her frequently during the rest of my exchange (which ended up being absolutely wonderful), and in the years that followed I realised I had many burning questions about the murders and about Agnes' role in them. I wanted to know what circumstances contributed to such a sorrowful fate, and what sort of woman she had been.
What compelled you to eventually write a novel about her?
While I had been immediately curious about Agnes on first hearing about the executions, it was some years before I decided to write a novel based on her story. In an early attempt to answer the persistent questions I had about the murders and execution, I did a little light research and began translating and reading a few articles about the case. While I soon discovered more details about the crime, something about the records troubled me: in many accounts of the murders Agnes was either portrayed as an unequivocally evil woman, or was hardly mentioned at all. Where I looked for her character, I found only a monstrous stereotype. My decision to write about Agnes was triggered by a longing to find the real woman behind the grotesque caricature of a black-hearted manipulator. It was never a desire to re-open the case in the hope that she was actually innocent. I wanted to instead discover something of her life story, and in doing so explore her ambiguity and complexity.
What kind of research was needed to accurately portray nineteenth-century Iceland?
More than I could ever have anticipated. I read a huge amount of material - everything I could get my hands on - to become familiar with what life was like in nineteenth-century Iceland. Not only did I study history books, but I also read diaries by foreign travellers to the country, fiction by people such as Halldór Laxness, many scholarly articles with very dry titles like 'Infant Mortality in Nordic Countries, 1780-1930', song lyrics, recipes, old newspapers - if it was about Iceland, I read it. It was an enjoyable process, but a slow one: most sources required translation before I could even gauge their usefulness. In the end, the most difficult things to research were aspects of mundane domestic life. What did people eat? Did they celebrate birthdays? If so, how? What were their shoes made out of? Did the men shave or grow beards? Did everyone use chamber pots and how heavy would one be? These are the things a historical novelist needs to know, sometimes even more so than the political climate or social customs, although these things are important too.
I also spent six weeks researching in Iceland's national archives and libraries, where I was able to study censuses, ministerial records and 'soul registers', and where I learned most of the facts of Agnes's life. I also spent some time visiting the places where the novel is set. It was a very intense, very rewarding process, and as I researched the times that Agnes lived in, I found myself drafting scenarios and scenes that were suggested to me by my reading. Some of this imaginative speculation later mirrored the actual facts of her life with eerie resemblance. Overall, it took me about two years of full-time research and study before I felt confident enough in my knowledge of the events and that time in Iceland's history to begin writing.
Is the novel largely fact, or is a significant portion direct from your imagination?
The relationship between fact and fiction is a close and complicated one in Burial Rites. When I decided to write a novel about Agnes Magnúsdóttir and the historical events surrounding Iceland's last execution, I promised myself that I would honour every fact that could be corroborated. In other words, I decided to keep my imagination on a leash, only giving it free reign when the facts contradicted one another, or were nowhere to be found. That said, everything in the novel is somehow anchored to my research, even if it's largely fictional. I never discovered what exactly Agnes was doing from the age of 6 to 16 for instance (the records for those 10 years were destroyed), but my wider research into the lives and experiences of other pauper and illegitimate children informed my speculation. Every creative decision, every fictional aspect of the novel can be directly linked to something I encountered in my reading.
Interestingly, the stranger elements of Agnes's story are the parts that I have not fictionalised. For instance, several characters have important dreams which are discussed in the novel, and form part of the narrative. All of these dreams were taken from several local histories and accounts of the murder - none were made up. It's astonishing what some people think to write down, and what else is neglected. In many ways I think of the novel as a speculative biography. It's only a suggestion of how things might have been, but it is informed conjecture.
The Icelandic landscape has a large presence in the novel. What role does it play, and what impressions has it left on you?
It would be impossible to write an Icelandic story without including the country's landscape. I've never been anywhere else in the world where the natural world is made even more beautiful through its inherent hostility. The weather, the mountains, the northern sky - it all has a presence that cannot be ignored or shut out as it can be in other places. The very light of the place commands your attention. Living there, you find your days shaped by the natural world in ways that it does not in other countries, whether it's the midnight sun preventing you from sleeping with its warm blush coming through your curtains, or a howling gale shutting you inside for days on end. I think the lack of trees contributes to this unusually strong presence of the land and weather. The view is often unobscured, and when you stand in that landscape, amongst the valleys and mountains and fjords, you realise that you too are visible for miles. It creates a mixed yet exhilarating feeling of vulnerability and awe.
When I researched Burial Rites I often came across references to the landscape in letters and diary entries. People would agree to meet at a certain time or place 'weather permitting'. It was a constant phrase, and I slowly realised the extent to which people's lives were governed not only by the seasons, but by day-to-day rainfall, winds, northern lights. I wanted to make sure I captured the force of the Icelandic landscape in Burial Rites, whilst also honouring its splendour.
How do Icelanders feel about this book?
I have had only support from Icelanders so far, which is wonderfully assuring. From the archivists, librarians and locals who assisted me in my research, to those who have got in touch with me since the book has been released, everyone has so far been enthusiastic about my novel. Many are simply curious to know why a young Australian chose to write about events so far away in time and place from her own experiences. No doubt that there will be a number of Icelanders who disagree with the way in which I've portrayed characters (some may be descendants of the historical people they're based on afterall), but I can accept that. I haven't set out to offend anyone, or to subvert a well-known story for the sake of controversy. I hope they see this book as the 'dark love letter to Iceland' I intend it to be.

Who have you discovered lately?
I am completely in awe of Eleanor Catton. I read her debut novel The Rehearsal earlier this year, and was stunned by its originality and ambition. She's young, but the quality of her prose suggests an extraordinarily mature intellect: it is staggeringly good. I'm currently reading her second novel, the Man Booker longlisted The Luminaries, and am once again taking huge pleasure in Catton's use of language and her artful command of structure. I've also been reading the Patrick Melrose quintet by Edward St. Aubyn, and have been recommending the series to anyone who will listen. Acerbic, horrifying and filled with darkly funny observations, St. Aubyn's books are filled with characters so vile, so hideously malformed by their own self-interest and self-righteousness, that you cannot possibly put them down. As soon as I finish the final novel I have plans to read them all over again.

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