Hannah Kent
Hannah Kent
Hannah Kentis a contemporary Australian writer, and the author of the bestselling novel Burial Rites...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionWriter
CountryAustralia
iceland firsts stories
I first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland.
writing iceland trying
I have a deep and ongoing love of Iceland, particular the landscape, and when writing Burial Rites, I was constantly trying to see whether I could distill its extraordinary and ineffable qualities into a kind of poetry.
beautiful iceland mountain
In Iceland, you can see the contours of the mountains wherever you go, and the swell of the hills, and always beyond that the horizon. And theres this strange thing: youre never sort of hidden; you always feel exposed in that landscape. But it makes it very beautiful as well.
ice feelings together
A bubble of fear passes up my spine. It's the feeling of standing on ice and suddenly hearing it crack under your weight - both thrilling and terrifying together.
believe car gone grab light past reading street supposed waiting
I used to have 20/20 vision, believe it or not; that's gone because of all the reading I did when I wasn't supposed to, reading in the back of a car, waiting for each street light to go past so I could grab another sentence.
blindly dead draft ends expected feeling point process walking
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.
hooked reminds term
I really hate the term 'historical novel' - it reminds me of bodice-rippers. But I'm hooked on research, and I really, really enjoy it.
I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do as a money-making job.
dismiss guided
I don't like to pretend I was guided in any way by the supernatural world, but the more you talk about that, the easier it is to dismiss those notions.
both reader uncovered
There are secrets at the heart of every story; there is something that must be uncovered or discovered, both by the reader and by the characters.
countries
I had an interest in Scandinavian countries because I'd never seen snow.
drawn writers
Most writers are drawn to what is unknown, rather than what is clear in any tale.
applied embark field funding happily local national overseas parish six spent trip weeks
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.
certainly connection people
I still don't know why, exactly, but I do think people can have a spiritual connection to landscape, and I certainly did in Iceland.