Burial Rites [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2013] Hannah Kent - Softcover

Hannah Kent

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1447235657 ISBN 13: 9781447235651

Publisher: Picador, 2013

Synopsis

Paperback. Pub Date :2013-09-12 Pages: 256 Language: English Publisher: Picador They said I must die They said that I stole the breaths from men. and now they must steal mine I imagine. then. that we are.. all candle flames. greasy-bright. fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind. and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps. awful coming footsteps. coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke. In northern Iceland. 1829. Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of her lover. Agnes is sent to wait out her final months on the farm of district office Jon Jonsson. his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst. the family avoid contact with Agnes. Only Toti. the young assistant priest appointed Agness spiritual guardian. is compelled to try to understand...

About this title

Review:

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2013: Exploring the final months of an Icelander maid charged with murder and condemned to execution in 1829 is hardly a reader-friendly subject for a novel. But in her mesmerizing debut, Hannah Kent offers a retelling of actual historical events that makes it impossible not to become invested in understanding the guilt--or innocence--of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last person to be executed in Iceland. Kent seamlessly shifts between historical documents and different characters’ perspectives with a lyricism that makes every tortured thought and charged interaction echo in the silence of Iceland’s stark landscape. As details of Agnes’s involvement in the crime come to light, this thoroughly researched debut novel asks us to examine the significance of stories--both the ones that others tell about us and the ones that we tell about ourselves--ultimately offering Agnes a chance at a more compassionate story than the one history has given her. --Heather Hunt

Photos from Hannah Kent, Author of Burial Rites

"Little Forest" in Saudarkrokur, North Iceland Traditional turf homes, North Iceland Glumbaer, North Iceland Horses in Vatnsdalur, North Iceland

About 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1447235657
• ISBN 13: 9781447235651
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 338