Melbourne Writers Festival- Hannah Kent: Burial Rights

I have never loved someone like I have loved Hannah Kent. 

(well, that came off a bit more creepy then expected, but let me explain before you all start judging.) 

I first got introduced to the genius of Hannah Kent when I was completing Year 12 literature, my teacher (another incredibly intellectual and wonderful woman) and I would recommend books and movies to each other, and one day she recommended Burial Rites, a book she had recently read by an author she saw featured on the ABC show Australian Story. After her recommendation I got online and watched the episode on Hannah Kent to see if the book was really worth reading, and that is when the love began. 

Kent was so articulate and well spoken as she told the interviewer how Burial Rites, a "speculative biography" about Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last women to be executed in Iceland, came to be her debut novel and an international bestseller. 

The Australian Story episode gave you the story behind the story, and it was incredible. The little coincidences and events that occurred in aid of this novel made it seem as if Kent was meant to write this book, to provide a just interpretation of a woman who's story was told throughout Iceland, but perhaps never told justly in her time. 

Kent was first introduced to the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir when she travelled as a teenager to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange.

So yes I fell in love with Kent. However, after watching the Australian Story I had no desire to actually read Burial Rites because I didn't think Agnes could be any where near as great as Hannah. 

So with the excuse of year 12 exams approaching I never read Burial Rites, until earlier this year when my mum (yet another wonderful woman) was given the book in her book club and I watched her as she spent every free moment reading it - every time I started a conversation with her she would only look up momentarily from the book. She eventually finished it and then begged me to read it. I was still not convinced. 

And then the Melbourne Writers Festival released its events and looking down the list I found Hannah Kent: In Conversation and I squealed and went online and bought the ticket before realising how completely stupid I was because I hadn't even read her book so I got myself a copy of Burial Rites (a copy I now keep on my bookshelf amongst my favourite novels)

I read Burial Rites at any moment I could, in uni breaks, before dancing, after homework.

Why was I so compelled by this book?!?! 

I knew what was inevitably going to happen, didn't I?!?!

I was discussing the book with a woman in my course who had just finished it when I realised how truly invested I was in this story. We were talking about Kent and all her brilliance when Gemma pointed out how grim the book is and yet there is still a ray of hope throughout it despite knowing how sad the ending is going to be. You read it so quickly because it is so beautifully organic and yet at the same time the prose makes you want to read it slower and reflect on every beautiful phrase Kent has managed to compose. 

The book has the ultimate spoiler and yet it makes you want to read it more.

I finished the book and then this weekend went to see Kent talk at Deakin's Edge with the brilliant Bethanie Blanchard.

I made my way into the empty lecture hall and took a seat in the second row because I was way too intimidated to sit in the front. 

The magic that Hannah carries was instantly realised as another beautiful coincidence was brought to the attention of the audience once she announced in the commencement of the interview that Deakin's Edge is where she first came up with the name Burial Rites  for her manuscript, as she herself sat in a Melbourne Writers Festival talk, and so it seemed she had come full circle.  

Hannah talked in the same way she wrote; you wanted her to continue but you also wanted time to reflect on what she  had just said. 

Kent talked about the excitement of getting closer to the ghosts of the past and the appreciation she held for her mentor Geraldine Brooks. She tentatively discussed the fact that her book will soon be turned into a movie starring  the Academy Award Winning Actress Jennifer Lawrence and then less humbly hoped the film would feature the harsh and beautiful terrain of Iceland, before finally expressing her nervousness of the book being released in Icelandic later this year. 

The interview was truly thrilling and I was glad to see the passion for the story was still alive in her as she continued to push herself up in the seat every time she got the chance to talk about Agnes, and it was then that I realised, she was in love with Agnes in the same way I was in love with her: it was an admiration for an extraordinary woman. 

-A

*Mosaik does not take any credit for the images used in this article