Hannah Kent
Hannah Kent
Hannah Kentis a contemporary Australian writer, and the author of the bestselling novel Burial Rites...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionWriter
CountryAustralia
bedtime call crucial dad dreaming drifting finish leave point responsibility
My dad would tell me bedtime stories, and he used to always leave them open-ended and finish at a crucial point with the words, 'dream on'. Then it was my responsibility to finish the story as I was drifting off to sleep. We would call them dreaming stories.
broken-heart weight mouths
It was only later that I suffocated under the weight of his arguments, and his darker thoughts articulated. It was only later that our tongues produced landslides, that we become caught in the cracks between what we said and what we meant, until we could not find each other, did not trust the words in our own mouths.
wise kindness ravens
Cruel birds, ravens, but wise. And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness.
bird guilt berries
...dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush.
horse prayer mistake
I have made a mistake. They condemn me to death and I ask for a boy to coach me for it. A red-headed boy, who gobbles his buttered bread and toddles to his horse with the seat of his pants wet, this is the young man they hope will get me on my knees, full of prayer. This is the young man I hope will be able to help me, although with what and how I cannot think.
life want remembered
I don't want to be remembered, I want to be here!
I preferred to read than talk with the others.
treachery foe
The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe.
memories real talking
Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened.
prayer mistake woven
As though prayer could simply pluck sin out. But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.
done different persons
To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.
heart bird mind
The gloom encroaches upon my mind, and my heart flutters like a bird held fast in a fist.
dark hateful bones
Endless days of dark indoors and hateful glances are enough to set a rime on anyone's bones.
home winter long
I've been half-frozen for so long, it is as though the winter has set up home in my marrow.