Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. Her first novel, Burial Rites, has been translated into nearly thirty languages and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), the Guardian First Book Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Hannah is also the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. The Good People is her second novel.
"A brooding, atmospheric debut."--Entertainment Weekly
"A compelling read, heart-breaking and uplifting in equal
measure."--Anne Berry, author of The Hungry Ghosts
"A cool, atmospheric, historical thriller.... This page-turner will
transport you to another place and time, and Agnes's fate will
consume you to the very last page."--Deborah Harkness for
Parade
"A gripping narrative of love and murder that inhabits a landscape
and time frame as bleak and unforgiving as the crime and punishment
that occurred there."--Thomas Chatterton Williams, San Francisco
Chronicle
"A haunting portrait of the woman beheaded in Iceland's final
execution.... with echoes of Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood's
1997 novel, Alias Grace...."--Yvonne Zipp, MLive
"A magical exercise in artful literary fiction.... With language
flickering, sparkling and flashing like the northern lights....
Beautiful are Kent's descriptions of the interminable summer light,
the ever-present snow and ice and cold of winter's gloomy darkness,
the mountains, sea and valleys where sustenance is blood-rung from
sheep."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
"A sensation among book reviewers drawn to its depiction of the
struggles of a gritty people and a doomed woman amid a harsh
landscape."--Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor
"A spectacular literary debut. Beautifully written with a great
sense of place..."--San Diego Union Tribune
"An excellent premise.... [and] a gripping tale about what Agnes
was actually guilty of."--Susannah Meadows, The New York Times
"Atmospheric, stark and beautiful."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Beautiful and compelling.... Hannah Kent brings Agnes vividly to
life.... This meticulously researched novel is a multidimensional
saga spanning many months and told through the eyes of numerous
narrators. It paints an extremely descriptive picture of the harsh,
desolate Icelandic countryside and the isolated lives of a rural
family living in the distant 19th century."--Jenni Herrick, Express
Milwaukee
"Bleak and beautiful.... Kent handles her starkly austere story
with uncanny precision and an utter lack of sentiment."--Steve
Donoghue, Washington Post
"BURIAL RITES is a debut of rare sophistication and beauty - a
simple but moving story, meticulously researched and hauntingly
told."--Lucy Scholes, The Guardian UK
"Debut author Hannah Kent has crafted a gorgeous, literary novel
that peppers in just the right amount of suspense. I loved this
story not just because of its intricate character studies, but for
its evocation of a cold and formidable landscape that is just as
stark as the people who inhabit it. This compelling,
ripped-from-real-life tale reminds me of Margaret Atwood's Alias
Grace with a dash of Lizzie Borden thrown in. BURIAL RITES is the
sort of novel that stays in your head long after you've finished
reading the last words."--Karin Slaughter, author of the Grant
County and Will Trent/Atlanta series
"Deeply emotional [and] gripping.... A cross between the grim,
moorish atmosphere of Wuthering Heights and the cold,
religiously-infested repression of a Bergman film, Kent's novel
emerges alive, triumphant and sublimely poetic."--Shelf
Awareness
"Delves deep into Scandinavian history, not to mention matters of
storytelling, guilt, and silence.... Kent smoothly incorporates her
impressive research...while giving life to these historical figures
and suspense to their tales."--Publishers Weekly
"Enticing.... Kent...convincingly animates Agnes...showing her
headstrong humanity and heart-wrenching thirst for life."--Sam
Sacks, Wall Street Journal
"Gorgeously atmospheric.... [with] memorable, complex
characters."--The New Yorker
"Hannah Kent's gorgeous and haunting BURIAL RITES will touch your
heart."--Charlotte Rogan, author of The Lifeboat
"Hannah Kent's BURIAL RITES shows how a seemingly simple tale-a
murder, a family, a remote landscape-can prove mythic in scale in
the right hands. 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 Dare Me
"Here is an original new voice, with a deep and lovely grasp of
language and story. Hannah Kent's first novel, BURIAL RITES, is an
accomplished gem, its prose as crisp and sparkling as its northern
setting."--Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"If you read nothing else this fall, read BURIAL RITES: The pages
turn themselves."--Steph Opitz, Marie Claire
"In the company of works by Hilary Mantel, Susan Vreeland, and Rose
Tremain, this compulsively readable novel entertains while
illuminating a significant but little-known true story. Highly
recommended."--Barbara Love, Library Journal (Starred Review)
"Kent adds such vivid and creative depth to authentic figures that
readers seemingly feel the plot becoming a part of the true
history."--Kacy Muir, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader
"Kent brings a bleak beauty to this grim tale, her prose
illuminating the stark landscape of the far north and the deepest
recesses of a woman's soul."--Donna Marchetti, Cleveland Plain
Dealer
"Kent displays a talent beyond her years, not only in her
restrained and often beautiful prose...but also in matters of
structure and pacing."--Nicholas Mancusi, The Daily Beast
"Kent skillfully reconstructs events."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Meticulously researched, this chilling account is set in a starkly
beautiful part of Iceland that's as remote and heartbreaking as the
haunting page-turner itself."--Carolyn Mason, DailyCandy
"Offers lovers of historical fiction a stunning new setting in
which to become immersed.... Kent's powerful and beautiful prose
along with Agnes' fascinating story will hook readers and not let
them go."--SheKnows.com
"Rarely has a country's starkness and extreme weather been rendered
so exquisitely. The harshness of the landscape and the lifestyle of
nineteenth-century Iceland, with its dank turf houses and meager
food supply, is as finely detailed as the heartbreak and tragedy of
Agnes' life.... [A]haunting reading from a bright new
talent."--Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist (Starred Review)
"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, author of The Song of
Achilles
"Stunning.... [Kent] manages to balance darkness and light as
carefully as it balances life and death."--Rory O'Connor,
Examiner
"The story of Agnes' execution is the spark that sets Kent's novel
beautifully ablaze.... It's a difficult task to evoke empathy for a
convicted murderer from Iceland, but Kent succeeds through her
beautiful, lyrical language and incredibly skilled narrative.... In
this, her first novel, she proves her gift as a sculptor of
narrative and a wielder of words."--Claire Luchette, Bustle
Ask a Question About this Product More... |