May 8, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode, we talk to Hannah Kent. The South Australian author burst onto the literary scene in 2013, with the publication of her debut historical novel, Burial Rites, about the execution of a young woman in Iceland, two centuries ago. The book was a global bestseller, optioned by Hollywood with Jennifer Lawrence attached to star in the film version, but Kent’s success also gave her that thing that all writers crave - not fame and fortune, but time and space to write. She followed Burial Rites with two more hit novels, The Good People and Devotion, not to mention a screenplay for Netflix, and now something different - a memoir. Kent talks to senior writer Konrad Marshall about “Always Home, Always Homesick”, which walks readers through the early life experiences that set Kent on the writing path, followed by her formative time as a teenage exchange student in Iceland, plus the forensic and emotional construction of her smash hit novel, and finally, the ghost who lingers and lives with her still.
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S1 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:34):
stories of the day. In this episode, we talk to
Hannah Kent. The South Australian author burst onto the literary
scene in 2013 with the publication of her debut historical novel,
Burial Rites, about the execution of a young woman in
Iceland two centuries ago. The book was a global bestseller,
optioned by Hollywood, with Jennifer Lawrence reportedly attached to star
(00:56):
as the condemned Agnes. Kent's success also gave her that
thing that all writers crave. No, not fame and fortune,
but the time and space to write. She followed Burial
Rites with two more masterful works, The Good People and Devotion,
not to mention a screenplay for Netflix. And now, Something
different a memoir. Always home, Always Homesick walks readers through
(01:19):
the early life experience that set Kent on the writing path.
Following her formative experience as an exchange student in Iceland,
the forensic and emotional construction of her smash hit novel,
and finally, the ghost who lingers and lives with her still.
I'm so pleased that she's in the studio to chat
with us about all that and more. Welcome, Hannah.
S2 (01:39):
Thank you so much for having me.
S1 (01:40):
It's great to have you here. We met about a
decade ago, I think, on the press tour for the
good People. Uh, I'm pretty sure you were living in
Melbourne's northern suburbs at the time, and you kind of
talked about the importance of experiencing the world intensely and
your sadness that we're all sort of less in tune
(02:02):
with the earth than we once were. And that made
me think at the time of the Adelaide Hills, where
you kind of wanted to, to be, um, and where
you grew up quite outdoorsy on eight acres with a
dam and sheep and a swing, um, from an old
oak tree. A very sort of exterior life. Can you
(02:22):
tell listeners how you came to the internal world of writing? Um,
having grown up, uh, in, in that expansive sort of place?
S2 (02:32):
You know, it was funny. I, I don't really think
of reading or writing in the outside world as being
disconnected in any way. For me, they are very much integrated.
I grew up, like you say, you know, on beautiful
Paramount Country in the Adelaide Hills and from a very
young age was introduced to the beauty of the world
that surrounded me, particularly by my father, but also my mother.
(02:53):
They both grew up in a small town. They had
childhoods of swimming in the river. You know, they spent
a lot of their life outside. And so from, you know,
being a toddler, the outside world and the natural world
felt like a very safe place to be. It felt
like a place where I could reflect. I was encouraged
to reflect outside. And then when I started reading and
(03:17):
I found in words and I found in stories a
kind of magic, not so much an escape from the
worlds in which I existed, but an amplification of the
wonder that was around me. Then it felt like something
that I too, wanted to wield. You know, if stories
and the natural world were wondrous, and if they filled
(03:38):
me with awe, then I wanted to be able to
learn how to do this thing too. I wanted to
be able to give that to other people. So in
some ways, it's only recently that I've been reflected. I've
been reflecting about how all of these things have come together,
how all these elements of my life have sort of Harmonized.
But I do think now that that's probably a big
(03:58):
part of it. It was my early love of storytelling.
My association with it, with the natural world, and then
my desire to. Yeah, to offer that same kind of
magic to other people, to make them notice what was
around them and to also amplify their wonder in it.
S1 (04:13):
I remember talking to your sister, um, Briony.
S2 (04:16):
Yeah.
S1 (04:16):
Briony and her strongest memories were of building cubbies with
sticks and kind of pretending that you were witches, making
potions out of leaves and lichen and rocks or whatever.
You could forage in that space. Um, you're back there now,
and you have two children of your own. I do.
Anoushka and Rory, have you consciously tried to recreate the
(04:37):
same sort of wondrous experience? Um, in childhood?
S2 (04:41):
Definitely. I think particularly when they were young, I was like, okay,
now I have to facilitate this for them. And I
think what I've learned. I mean, Rory's just turned five
and Anouk is seven now. And I think what I've
learned in the experience of being a parent is that,
you know, the kids find their own way. You know,
I think children naturally are drawn to beautiful, exciting, wondrous things,
even things that we as adults might not necessarily perceive
(05:03):
as being particularly interesting. Kids find their own ways to
relate to the world. They find their own ways of noticing. Um,
and one of the joys I've found is, you know,
like I might on one rainy day. I might remember
this happened recently. I was like, it's raining. We haven't
had rain in ages. It's been a very dry summer
up in the Adelaide Hills. I'm like, let's got on
(05:24):
our rain jackets. And I basically just marched through and
marched them through pelting rain for five days. And you know,
I was thinking, oh, they're going to love the puddle jumping.
They're pretty miserable, honestly, for most of it. But in
the last half hour, they started noticing bubbles in the road,
just probably from the build up of detergent and pollutants.
And they were suddenly so fascinated by these, and I'd
(05:47):
completely disregarded it. By this stage, I was like, no, no, no,
we've got to get home. We're going to go over
this crest. I was so focused on directions, I was
so focused on other things of like, look at this
beautiful vista, which they had no interest in. But instead
I got to see that, you know, their their child
eyes find their own things that interest them. And then
I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, that's kind of extraordinary.
They look amazing. Look at the way they refract the light.
(06:10):
So it's always humbling, I think, to to be a parent.
You think, oh I've got, you know, my kids are
going to grow up this way. But no, they, they
find their own means.
S1 (06:18):
I love that you tried to get them out in
the rain. There's a really nice passage in your book
about you waiting to, um, get on a swing and
all the kids in front of you kind of not
letting you have that chance. And then the rain comes down.
It's like, finally my chance is here, and you're sitting
on that swing, getting pelted until the teachers, um, pull
(06:39):
you in.
S2 (06:39):
I loved it, I've always loved the rain. I've always loved.
I don't know this, like, you know, a really windy day.
I have another really cool memory from when I was
about five years old, of the wind blowing so hard,
and I was in the playground at my school and
all the kids are shrieking, and I just felt like
I could lean into it, like I felt like I
was about to fly. Yeah. It's amazing. I love that,
I love the wild weather.
S1 (07:00):
Um, just on children and birth. And please bear with
me here. Long, long question. Your friend and former colleague
Rebecca Stafford, with whom you founded the literary journal Kill
Your Darlings. Um, once described to me writing a book
as being like childbirth. She said, you forget what it
felt like the first time, which is why you're happy
to do it the next time. Now you've written about
(07:22):
birth in your books. If I remember correctly, you even
sort of consulted ancient midwifery guides in order to sort
of greater understand what it would have been like at
the time. But now, of course, you've had your own
experience of that human event. You even talk about it
quite vividly in the memoir about, um, the the sort
of harrowing emergency of, um, one of your, your, um,
(07:45):
birth experiences, you kind of your knuckles bloodied from punching
the hospital bed. Um, is it different now to to
write about that, having had the experience?
S2 (07:57):
I don't think so. No, I think I was expecting
it to be, you know, when you finally have these
intimate personal experiences you feel or maybe you hope that
they're going to cast a new enlightened insight, cast a
new insight, or maybe just a, um, a greater familiarity
with them. I think what happened instead was that I
had spent so much time, like you say, looking up
(08:20):
in various contexts, the history of midwifery and the various
experiences of women. And, um, and I felt that knowledge
and that kind of familiarity, even on an intellectual level,
was kind of with me when I then had my
own experiences and in, in the case of my daughter,
this birth, um, my first experience, um, I absolutely had
(08:42):
that in mind because there was an instance where things
got quite precarious and there was a practitioner who was being,
you know, without without getting into it with basically didn't
think that it was and then it did suddenly become
that way. And I remember my first instinct when I thought,
this isn't right. This isn't right. Thinking, thinking of everything
(09:03):
I had read and just how extreme this experience has
been for women throughout the years. So I think whilst
that didn't necessarily frighten me, it helped me listen to
my own intuition, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think it,
you know, there's certain physical experiences that giving birth, you know,
provide you a familiarity with. But I would say that
(09:24):
it's not necessarily something that I was wholly ignorant of.
I feel actually that if you listen to the stories
of other people, you can absolutely get a very, very
strong sense of things as they were and are and
continue to be.
S1 (09:37):
I love asking writers questions about process, how they go
about doing it. And I remember when I asked you
about it the first time, you you kind of reflected
that you were very fastidious about routine, kind of protective
even of your writing routine. You were up at 630,
feed the pets, make coffee, have brekkie. Um, then you're
(09:57):
into the study and the desk and the windows in
front of you, and there's some music, or maybe the
reassuring babble of, like, Swedish radio or something playing. You've
got a cat asleep at your feet and a dog
asleep at your feet as well. You have phone reminders
to take a break at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.,
(10:17):
otherwise you won't. Um, and this set goal of like
1000 words per day. Uh, do you still have that
kind of rigorous routine or regimen?
S2 (10:28):
Oh, God. No. I wish that's just. I was just
reminiscing when you were saying that, thinking, oh, my God,
the good old days. I remember that far out. I
had no responsibilities. No. My writing life has been completely
different pretty much since I fell pregnant. I, um, in
in wonderful ways to, too, you know. But I think
there was definitely a period in my life when my
(10:49):
children were very young. Both were terrible sleepers. They're only
just my daughter's only just started sleeping through the night
at seven years old. Oh, God. You know, hard for
her as well. Absolutely. But, you know, it has. This
has a ripple effect upon your entire day. You know,
kind of extraordinary fatigue and also just the responsibility of
looking after very little people and also wanting to spend
(11:11):
time with them. Um, but there was a period of
time where I felt very disoriented and very disconnected from
a creative practice, because probably because I had been so
strict in my routines and so narrow in my concept
of discipline. Hmm. And I think probably it took me
a good five years to find out that actually, they
weren't as necessary as I thought they were. And to
(11:33):
find my way back to writing in a wholly new.
I wouldn't even call it routine practice. Yes, perhaps. But
this one had to be, you know, snatched hours at once.
The kids were down, it had to be thinking, oh great,
that appointment got cancelled. I'm going to I'm going to
start writing in my notes app on my phone. You know,
it's not the it's not the Swedish Babbel and the
(11:53):
candle and the, you know, very protected hours. It's in
some ways a integrating writing into my life as I'm
living it. And so I think for that reason I
have become much more highly focused. You know, it's it's
quite difficult to enter 19th century Prussia with Bluey really
loudly through the wall. Um, but, you know, I struggled.
(12:15):
But now I can do that. Now I can completely
shut down and focus. Um, and it was also a
really good exercise, I think, in a re-evaluation of priorities, um,
because there were some times when I had to physically
kind of pull the blinds down on the window of
my study at home because my children were pressing their
faces and pulling silly faces, and I had a deadline. And,
(12:36):
I mean, I felt terrible. They knew they weren't supposed
to disturb me. They'd snuck out, but it was, you know,
it makes you, I think, um, take the losses and
the moments of failure a little more lightly, because you
know that no matter what happens with the writing, you've
got this other thing going on. So, yeah. So I
think I'd actually say that it's improved me. I think
I'm much more flexible. I think in some ways, um,
(12:58):
I'm much more disciplined in the sense that I'm unfussy.
And I also think that now I, um, I don't
sweat the small stuff in my writing as much as
I once did. But yeah, it's completely different. Totally different.
S1 (13:10):
You also wrote the you wrote a screenplay, which I
mentioned earlier for a Netflix kind of, um, psychological thriller
slash horror movie, run Rabbit Run, filmed in Waikerie, starring
Sarah Snook. Um, you've also worked on screenplays for your
novels The Good People and Devotion. Uh, what do you
enjoy about that process? I understand it's a bit more
(13:33):
kind of collaborative. That must have a kind of push
and pull effect that there would be, uh, difficulty in that,
but also it must be nice to lean on others too.
I also just wonder if it's nice to do something
completely different, like a sort of a palate cleanser, if
you will, between big meaty projects.
S2 (13:53):
Oh yeah, all of the above, I think. Um, I
think I went in for the opportunity at first because
it came knocking on my door, and I was surprised
and delighted by that. And also because so much of
writing and the joy of writing for me comes from
the inherent challenges within it. So I was at the
stage that I heard from Carver Productions, Anna McLeish and
(14:14):
Sarah Shaw, two producers. Uh, they approached me and said,
you know, we think your writing has a visual sensibility.
Have you ever considered writing for film? And at the time,
I was on the brink of starting to write another
historical novel. I wasn't entirely sure what it was about.
I was probably a little sick of the solitude involved
in a lot of novel writing, but also I thought, well, yeah,
(14:36):
I absolutely would love to do that. That sounds just interesting,
mainly because I don't know anything about it. But also.
Oh yeah, that would that would be a good challenge.
You know, this would be like starting out again. This
would be like almost being a debut. And, um, I
also have a very strong intuitive sense about things that
I want to do. I often just jump in. I
can be quite spontaneous in my creative life in ways
(14:58):
that I'm not in my private life. But if someone
has a great concept or a great project idea and
it it enthuses me in the moment, I'm very likely
to say yes. And that's exactly what happened. And then
as the project unfolded and I learned more about what
it entailed, you know, what being a screenwriter entailed, then I, um,
I really enjoyed that collaborative aspect. I knew there would
(15:19):
be a lot of back and forth, but I really
enjoyed being humbled by it in a funny way. You know,
with novels, I, I, I'm a massive rewriter. I do
draft after draft after draft.
S1 (15:30):
God, I remember you describing in the memoir that you
dumped 40,000 words at the start of burial rights and
just started it again.
S2 (15:38):
Yes. And I just and I did that with this
memoir too. Oh my gosh. I've written it like three
times over. But, um, but that's how my process, you know,
it's not really as fast as I'd like it to be,
but that's just how I work. But then with screenwriting,
they were like, all right, go off and, you know,
try and write a draft of this thing. And I
was like, oh God, I don't I don't really know
how to be a screenwriter. And eventually confessed that I
(15:59):
didn't really feel equipped. And they said, well, they gave
me this beautifully generous comment which was just write a
screenplay as a novelist. So I did that, and I
thought it was I thought it was pretty good. And then, um,
you know, we sort of parked it and we had
a meeting and they're like, so send that through whenever
you're ready. And I was like, oh, I have to
show you my first drafts. Like, you have to see
my notes. I was like, it's not good. Like I
(16:20):
like the the bones. But then I'm like, no, no, no,
you got to show us. And so that was a
great that was a great learning curve. Just kind of thinking,
oh my God, I'm just going to have to show this.
Not great, very rough, very unpolished work to these professionals. Um,
but I loved that because it really made me in
their grace. And the ways in which they received sometimes
(16:40):
is very, very hideous drafts. I thought, oh, people understand
this creative process. These are creative people who are interested
in development and understanding of the various stages of it,
and what it takes to get to a final production.
And I really, really loved that. And it made me, um,
it made me all the more willing and interested to
continue working with these people who are very invested in,
(17:02):
in creative process and then working with, um, you know,
the wonderful director Dana Read. That was another learning process again.
And I loved that. I loved the faith that gets
placed in you as a writer, where they say, look,
we think it needs this particular beat or we need
something else. Here you go do that. I trust that
you'll be able to find what it is. I don't
need to direct you in what that might be. And
(17:23):
then you come back with a bunch of options. They're like, yeah,
that's it. That's when you kind of feel that you're
vibrating on the same wavelength creatively, that's just so exhilarating.
And then I think I take some of that energy
back to my novel writing. Yeah.
S1 (17:36):
Another process question in the memoir, you mentioned doing research
for burial rites. Um, and there was this day that
you spent kind of three hours in the National Museum
or the National Archives in, um, in Iceland and took
like 400 photos. Yeah. I'm just wondering how those images
(17:57):
become part of your process. Like, are they pinned to
some gigantic wall with thumbtacks? Because it it made me
think of a memoir I read ages ago, Annie Prue's, um,
Bird Cloud. And it was about like the building of
her sort of dream home in Wyoming. And she talked
about her process, and it was like she had scraps
(18:18):
of paper, handwritten notes, photos, drawings, this massive kind of
tableau along one wall, consuming a table like the size
of a, you know, an office, boardroom table. Um, and
she could just kind of go and walk amongst all
those notes. When she was doing the writing, is there
anything like, yeah, what do you do with all of
(18:40):
those source materials? How do you keep them ordered?
S2 (18:42):
I don't know if they are ordered. Honestly, I keep
on trying to find new methods of of being organized,
but ultimately I just revert to my natural state, which
I think is chaos. Certainly with, um, with burial rites.
I had a giant map, I found a very detailed map,
and I blew it up in color, and I stuck
it on my wall right next adjacent to my computer.
(19:02):
And then the research photos that I thought had a
particular that I wanted to be able to refer to frequently. Um,
whether it was to, you know, just remember that textural
look of, I don't know, a domestic item in a
19th century Icelandic turf farm, or whether it was even
a photograph of a moment when I had a key revelation.
By going through the censuses or the microfiche, I would
(19:25):
stick it on the map as well. So it was,
you know, it gets very much like that. It gets
very a beautiful mind, as you know.
S1 (19:32):
As my little pieces of string connecting.
S2 (19:35):
Yeah, absolutely. You look like an absolute maniac. Um, and
I'm so interested in other people's creative processes. And sometimes
I pick up, you know, things that they do thinking, oh,
this is going to help me even further. So at
the moment, I still put everything up on the wall.
I like to see it. I'm a very visual person.
It's how my memory works. And so I do. I
sort of cover my study walls with all these little
(19:56):
scraps and notes and photographs and, and then I also, um,
I don't know if I'm going to go back to this, actually,
I don't know how successful it was, but I also
keep index notes, you know, the old school kind of
index cards. I did this for devotion because there was
so much I needed to know, and there was also
so much information available. Yeah, prior to that, I tend
to make I tend to do a lot of rewriting again,
(20:18):
just to immerse myself in the research. I keep notebooks
and because they're just for me, I, you know, put
illustrations in them and little notes to myself. So they're
sort of part diaries if I go on a research trip. Um, recipes, proverbs.
This kind of, I guess, this very broad net that
I cast over the time and the people that I'm researching,
(20:39):
I sort of drag and dump in these notebooks and
the index cards, though, that was something that I felt
I needed to do for very easy reference. So but
it was so laborious making them. I mean, I really
got carried away with just the childlike joy of clipping
out bits of notes and pasting them to cards and
then ordering them. You know, honestly, I don't know if
that one's for me, but yeah, all of it. All
of the above.
S1 (21:00):
Did I go into a box in the attic or
do they just get cast to.
S2 (21:03):
They get shoved behind books in my bookshelf?
S1 (21:05):
Yeah. Okay. In the book, this is the new book.
I love the way it described the landscape. When you
first got to Iceland as a 17 year old, it
was all sort of cold and darkness, and you had
so many different ways for describing the darkness and, and
(21:28):
the wonder and how all of that was sort of
mixed in with your homesickness. Um, I lived in the
US for several years, and I vividly remember landing in
the North Country up near Canada at night when it
was covered in snow as well, and it brought back
a lot of memories for me, and a similar sort
of sense of personal confusion about where I was and
(21:50):
what I was doing. Um, now, I kind of similar
to what you've described in your book. I sort of
long for that climate and that the, the muscular sort
of heft of the landscape there, these big high peaks
and deep glacial lakes and, you know, experiences like the
sound of the, the echoey crack of ice in a
(22:12):
frozen lake or they have ice storms there in winter
and the, the branches, all of the tiny little, um,
branches on the trees get covered in ice. And then
in the wind they chime together like little bells, you know,
it's just sort of magical. Um, what natural phenomena do
you miss most about Iceland? This place that you've been
(22:33):
back to so many times is standing on a glacier,
as it's soaking in a hot spring. Is it gazing
at the northern lights like there's so much to it?
S2 (22:41):
Oh, that's like choosing a favorite child. I don't think
I could, um, but I have to say, I mean,
there's a common experience that I have with all of them,
which is, I think the beautiful thing in Iceland is
that you can see for so far, you can see
such great distances. The air is incredibly pure. Um, someone
once said, because there's not very much air traffic. So
I think that allows you to see further than you often,
(23:02):
you know, that you might be accustomed to.
S1 (23:04):
Big sky.
S2 (23:05):
Big skies. We have them here as well. Um, but
also there's a lack of trees. They're increasingly planting them.
But for the most part, when you're standing in the
natural environment, when you're standing in nature and you're looking out,
you can see vast distances, you can see the contours
of the landscape. You can see just how great and
sort of awe inspiring the weather. And the play of
(23:27):
light is upon it. Like you see rain moving through,
you know, in the distance. And my sort of emotional
response to that, outside of being wow, how beautiful is
also oh wow, look how small you are and look
how inconsequential you are. Not in a bad way at all.
In in a fantastic way, in a way that you
feel like you are. There's nothing special about you, but
(23:48):
actually that's what connects you to everything. So it is
this incredible feeling of, um, communion with your natural environment
and actually a deep feeling of belonging, um, that you're
not something which is apart from this, you're a tiny,
tiny speck of something which is much greater than you'll
ever understand, you know, almost kind of a spiritual response,
I guess people might say, um, and I think probably
(24:09):
the most elevated experience of that emotion, that kind of yeah,
both intellectual and emotional response would probably be with the
Northern Lights. I've, um, I saw them so much, and
I have since every time I've gone to Iceland. But
there have been a couple of nights where they have
been particularly strong and have gone on for hours and. Hours.
(24:29):
And it's I don't know, it's like going into a
trance for that time. You feel like you've, I don't know,
taken some sort of mind altering drug. It's a, it's
a massive sort of trip and I loved it. I
loved that so much. So yeah, if I had to
choose anything, I'd probably choose that again.
S1 (24:45):
It does seem like the landscape sort of unlocked something
in your psyche. In the memoir, you describe this conversation
with a woman who I think you were billeted out
with for a night. Um, and it was this chat
you had with her about ghosts and their presence in Iceland.
And this is what you wrote. Even in my few
months of living here, I have seen how the wind
(25:06):
moves the snow along the ground at night like a
spirit looking for rest. How? Sometimes the mountains seem to
possess faces. And how the wind can carry. Sound like
a crying child. Iceland feels like a place where ghosts abide.
There is another air here. The boundaries feel permeable somehow.
So my question then is a simple one, but maybe
with a complicated answer like do you believe in spirits?
S2 (25:28):
Yeah, I do. I believe in, um, I believe in
energy as sort of woo woo as that sounds. But
I mean, I do believe in it without claiming to
understand it or without claiming to have a very specific
understanding of how these things might operate on the world.
I believe in spirits, and I believe in ghosts insofar
as they exist and live in people, even if that's
(25:50):
through an act of imagination. In the same way that
a placebo effect is still an effect, right? Yeah, people
can still be haunted, even if ghosts don't, you know,
scientifically exist. Um, I, I have several family members who
have had very intense and frequent experiences with ghosts, and
I've always been so interested in ghost stories. When I
was in Iceland, I was fascinated by the very a
(26:14):
very specific Icelandic ghost as it is as it exists
in their mythologies, in their folktales. You know, in Iceland,
ghosts are not the sort of vapor in the background.
They're often corporeal. They can move things around. They often have,
you know, bad intent. They can kill you. And, um,
I was fascinated by that and by how much, you know,
(26:35):
ghosts were an embodiment of the fears of the people,
you know, which is always what they are. They're, you know,
ghosts are a projection of so much of what we feel.
And ghost stories always say so much more about the
people telling them than the ghosts themselves. Um, so yeah,
I would, but yes, I, I feel like as much
as I would love to be like, oh, no, clearly not.
(26:56):
They're just, you know, this fabrication or I know I've
heard way too many ghost stories, and I've been too
chilled out and freaked out by moments of bizarre happenings
and coincidences to write them off completely.
S1 (27:10):
Absolutely. There's another passage in your book where you're describing dreams,
and can I just say, some of your dreams sound
absolutely horrifying at different times. This this one you were. uh.
You've woken up after a dream of having your throat
cut and feeling the the warmth of your own blood
on your chest. On your chest. It's it's terrifying. Um,
(27:30):
but what interests me is you wake up and you
want to capture that moment, but you don't want to
capture it in words. So you draw it instead. Are
you somebody that practices drawing and sketching? Is that like
part of what you do? And I don't know, does
it unlock a different kind of creativity or what do
you do with that drawing by the way? Where's that?
S2 (27:50):
I love drawing, I loved art, I studied it in
year 12. Um, I love working with charcoal particularly, but
also just to. I don't think I would ever pursue
it in a vocational sense, but it's definitely something which
I see as connected to writing. Sometimes it's more helpful
in trying to. It gestures towards feeling sometimes, whereas for me,
(28:15):
so much of writing is about trying to achieve a
kind of a perfect distillation or an articulation of something
I wish to express. Sometimes I don't know what that
is yet, so drawing sort of to me allows for
a more nebulous connection or more nebulous or, you know,
a more yeah, I'll leave it there more, a more
nebulous connection to what it is that that's niggling at
(28:37):
me or, or an experience. But yeah, I still draw
quite a lot. My daughter is a, um, is an
incredible artist. She loves it. It's her favorite thing in
the world to do. And, um, she's always asking me
to draw with her, and that's been lovely, actually. That's
so often happens in when you're a parent, you're given
permission and an avenue to return to things that you
loved when you were younger. So I've been doing a
(28:58):
lot more drawing. Um, and it's it's wonderful. I think
it helps my writing in the same way that writing
poetry or just, you know, doing playful word exercises helps, too.
It's just part of the play. It's just, yeah, part
of just being creative without, you know, stakes resting on it,
without there necessarily needing to be a specific output. And that's,
a wonderful way to stoke the fires, I think.
S1 (29:20):
Fantastic. I feel like I should give it a shot myself.
I used to be really into drawing as a kid
and my son is, he's 12 and we found this old, um,
draftsman sort of table in the hard rubbish recently with
really rusty metal base and then a top that needed
sanding down. And so we sanded it down and stained
it up and lacquered it and everything. And now it
(29:41):
sits in a corner with a stool, and he's got
all of his art supplies, and he's like a pig in,
in mud, sitting there drawing away. I feel like I
should pull up a stool with him and have a sketch.
S2 (29:52):
It's something really lovely that. Yeah, she's she's demanded it
of me. And now that we've started, I love it.
But you should absolutely do that. Yeah. Hard recommend.
S1 (29:59):
Speaking of spirits, writing about the Agnes of your imagination,
you note that there's like, kind of there's truth in
your approximation of her. Um, just as there's truth in the, um, well,
just as it's one of many truths and potentially one
of many falsehoods because there are so many parts of
the historical record, as you describe it, that conflict or
(30:23):
are different or are just outright false. The only difference,
or one of the differences that I see, though, is
the kind of scope and reach of your truth that
your truth is sent out into the world, that it's
become a bestseller, right? And that it will potentially become
a film. And then it kind of becomes the established,
(30:49):
albeit unofficial, truth. Like, how do you feel about that? Like,
how do you reconcile having kind of the the final
word in many ways.
S2 (31:00):
Oh, that's a that's a good question. I do think
about it a great deal. I'm very grateful to, you know,
my younger self, when I started deciding how I was
going to write this book for choosing a quite laborious path, um,
I mean, when I started writing burial rites, it was
going to, you know, it was a component of a thesis.
I thought, you know, my mum and two examiners would
(31:22):
read it so I could kind of do what I
wanted with it. But even at that early stage, I
felt a very strong, I guess, ethical obligation to do
the work. Um, I was very aware of myself as
an outsider writing about a culture that I did not
grow up in, about a nationality and a nation of
which I don't have a, you know, a passport. I'm
(31:43):
not a citizen of that place. Um, in many ways,
I am a stranger and I'm an outsider. But I
felt that, um, so I really there was a period
of time where, first of all, I weighed up whether
or not I was someone who had a right to
this story. Um, I felt that I did because I
felt that my perspective was necessary. Um, I felt that
(32:05):
it was a balancing perspective. And I also actually thought, well,
you may be an outsider, but often outsiders have, you know,
being on the periphery, you've got the greatest view. you.
S1 (32:13):
Yeah.
S2 (32:13):
And I also thought, well, if you speak the language,
you're not you don't have a passing interest. You know,
this is a place that means a great deal to you.
You're you have, you know, a kind of self-perceived integrity
within your intent. Um, but all the same, you should
really make sure that you get you get it right.
And so I did 18 months of very intensive research.
And that included not only researching the events of, you know,
(32:37):
that I was writing about, but it also included an
understanding of 19th century Icelandic life, you know, social life,
you know, economic forces, political events. And, um, and so
I did that's what I did. And I became completely
obsessed and I think acquired a pretty decent level of
familiarity and knowledge of that time. And then, of course,
when the book kind of came out and was published
(32:57):
in the way it did, I started hearing from Icelanders,
and I started hearing from relatives of the people whose
ancestors were portrayed in the in the book. And all
of them, you know, even if they perhaps disagreed with
my Representation. The subjective representation of certain events said, you know,
but it's clear that you've you've you've done the work,
(33:19):
you've studied it and you know, and then also, when
I was in Iceland for the Icelandic translation, Icelanders have
this weekly book show and, um, which is wonderful for
such a small nation. And I was invited to go
on it, and I was in hair and makeup, and
the host came down and visited me and said, you know,
we're going to have a great show. But Hannah, is
it okay? I hear you speak Icelandic. Is it okay
(33:41):
if we talk a little in Icelandic before we do
the rest of the interview in English? And that was
a moment for me where I thought, oh yeah, this
is this is my way in. This is how I've
been admitted. And perhaps if I have a right to
tell this story, this is how I've earned it through,
through my understanding of the language. Um, and so we
did that and I've. Yeah, it's been it's been a
really interesting process. I think, um, one of the things
(34:02):
I have had to do is be very open with
the fact that I don't pretend to know everything, that
this is still a novel. Um, and that while many,
many people might see it now as the dominant narrative, um,
there are others out there and anyone who you know
wants to learn more should should access the same source
as I accessed, which is still available. So I think
(34:24):
maybe that's it. I try not to be too, um,
you know, I try not to claim this story as
my own too much. Just say, well, I am one
of many who have who have made a contribution, and
now you can make up your mind.
S1 (34:34):
The success of the book, of course, has given you
some some great experiences. You write, um, in the memoir about,
you know, having fun on the tour and not not
so much the the big parties. In fact, whenever you
describe one of those parties, you always seem to describe
either leaving.
S2 (34:49):
Early.
S1 (34:50):
Or sort of popping out to a quiet alcove to
have a conversation one on one. Um, the the joy
of it for you seemed to be this simple reward
of knowing that people have read your words and enjoyed them,
and you can talk to them about that. Given the
topic on this tour isn't, you know, um, isn't history
or fiction. It's, um. It's memoir. It's your life. Um,
(35:14):
as that made it more fun or. Or less.
S2 (35:19):
Well, I haven't had a, you know, I'm still quite
early on in since this book has came out. Came
out about a week ago. Um, and so I'm still
getting used to talking about it. It feels quite a
strange thing in some ways, to be able to speak
of my own life as a central kind of theme,
I guess I don't I mean, I really ate my
had to eat my words when this memoir came out,
(35:40):
because I remember telling friends of mine that I would
never write a memoir because I felt then, and to
a certain extent, I still do feel this way, that
my life is just not interesting enough. You know, like
I've yes, I'm a writer and I think that I
have these deep thoughts, but, I mean, I'm not doing
really anything quite extraordinary. And I certainly didn't think anyone
would be interested. And the only reason this book came
(36:00):
out was because it started. The concept didn't really leave
me alone in the same way my novels were these
ideas that would start to kind of follow me about,
and eventually I just get to the point where I'm like, oh, fine,
then I'll write it down. Um, but yeah, I do
feel slightly uncomfortable, I guess, with the with the specific
gaze on my own life, but it also makes me
(36:21):
think how glad I am that in this, you know,
the rewriting process of this memoir, I decided to cut
a lot of what I have written. Um, you know,
being new to the genre, I hadn't realized how important
it is to set your boundaries, both in terms of,
you know, what you're going to cover, but also in
terms of how much personal information are you going to reveal? Um,
(36:42):
and I remember when Burial Rights and my other novels
came out, there were always a couple of things that
would happen through the writing process or research process or
even event when I was touring around with them. And
I would think to myself, oh, that one's for me.
You know, I'm not going to relate this as an anecdote.
That's gonna be my little sacred thing that I get
to keep for myself. And so much of this book
was a realization, and in many ways, as a telling
(37:04):
of many of those stories that I've kept to myself
and now finally feel ready to share. Um, but even
still again, within this memoir, I mention all the writing
I've chucked out. Most of that is information. Say that,
for example, about relationships or about something that was slightly
still connected to the central themes, but slightly outside. You know,
that tight trinity of Iceland writing and, you know, my
(37:27):
relationship to both. And so, yeah, I'm very, very glad
I did take that out. Um, I think it still
would have been good content, but now I'm those are
the stories that again, that they're mine. Maybe one day
down the road I'll feel ready to tell them. But yeah,
I'm glad I cut them from the pages. And that helps.
I think whenever you're feeling slightly exposed or you're feeling
vulnerable and talking about your story or talking about your family,
(37:49):
I think to myself, well, they don't they don't know everything.
S1 (37:52):
Well, thank you so much for coming in and talking
about yourself, writing about yourself, given what you've just said.
It's been a real pleasure.
S2 (38:02):
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've loved it.
S1 (38:06):
That was novelist Hannah Kent on the latest Good Weekend talks.
You can hear Kent speak this Sunday at the Melbourne
Writers Festival, coming soon. On the show, we chat with
globally renowned sleep expert Professor Matthew Walker about rest and reinvigoration,
dreams and creativity. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember
to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts
(38:28):
and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations. Good Weekend
Talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age proud newsrooms powered by subscriptions to support
independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age?
This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Konrad
Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery, with technical assistance from
(38:50):
Cormac Lally. Tammy Mills is our executive producer, Tom McKendrick
is head of audio and Greg Callahan is the acting
editor of Good Weekend.
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:34):
stories of the day. In this episode, we talk to
Hannah Kent. The South Australian author burst onto the literary
scene in 2013 with the publication of her debut historical novel,
Burial Rites, about the execution of a young woman in
Iceland two centuries ago. The book was a global bestseller,
optioned by Hollywood, with Jennifer Lawrence reportedly attached to star
(00:56):
as the condemned Agnes. Kent's success also gave her that
thing that all writers crave. No, not fame and fortune,
but the time and space to write. She followed Burial
Rites with two more masterful works, The Good People and Devotion,
not to mention a screenplay for Netflix. And now, Something
different a memoir. Always home, Always Homesick walks readers through
(01:19):
the early life experience that set Kent on the writing path.
Following her formative experience as an exchange student in Iceland,
the forensic and emotional construction of her smash hit novel,
and finally, the ghost who lingers and lives with her still.
I'm so pleased that she's in the studio to chat
with us about all that and more. Welcome, Hannah.
S2 (01:39):
Thank you so much for having me.
S1 (01:40):
It's great to have you here. We met about a
decade ago, I think, on the press tour for the
good People. Uh, I'm pretty sure you were living in
Melbourne's northern suburbs at the time, and you kind of
talked about the importance of experiencing the world intensely and
your sadness that we're all sort of less in tune
(02:02):
with the earth than we once were. And that made
me think at the time of the Adelaide Hills, where
you kind of wanted to, to be, um, and where
you grew up quite outdoorsy on eight acres with a
dam and sheep and a swing, um, from an old
oak tree. A very sort of exterior life. Can you
(02:22):
tell listeners how you came to the internal world of writing? Um,
having grown up, uh, in, in that expansive sort of place?
S2 (02:32):
You know, it was funny. I, I don't really think
of reading or writing in the outside world as being
disconnected in any way. For me, they are very much integrated.
I grew up, like you say, you know, on beautiful
Paramount Country in the Adelaide Hills and from a very
young age was introduced to the beauty of the world
that surrounded me, particularly by my father, but also my mother.
(02:53):
They both grew up in a small town. They had
childhoods of swimming in the river. You know, they spent
a lot of their life outside. And so from, you know,
being a toddler, the outside world and the natural world
felt like a very safe place to be. It felt
like a place where I could reflect. I was encouraged
to reflect outside. And then when I started reading and
(03:17):
I found in words and I found in stories a
kind of magic, not so much an escape from the
worlds in which I existed, but an amplification of the
wonder that was around me. Then it felt like something
that I too, wanted to wield. You know, if stories
and the natural world were wondrous, and if they filled
(03:38):
me with awe, then I wanted to be able to
learn how to do this thing too. I wanted to
be able to give that to other people. So in
some ways, it's only recently that I've been reflected. I've
been reflecting about how all of these things have come together,
how all these elements of my life have sort of Harmonized.
But I do think now that that's probably a big
(03:58):
part of it. It was my early love of storytelling.
My association with it, with the natural world, and then
my desire to. Yeah, to offer that same kind of
magic to other people, to make them notice what was
around them and to also amplify their wonder in it.
S1 (04:13):
I remember talking to your sister, um, Briony.
S2 (04:16):
Yeah.
S1 (04:16):
Briony and her strongest memories were of building cubbies with
sticks and kind of pretending that you were witches, making
potions out of leaves and lichen and rocks or whatever.
You could forage in that space. Um, you're back there now,
and you have two children of your own. I do.
Anoushka and Rory, have you consciously tried to recreate the
(04:37):
same sort of wondrous experience? Um, in childhood?
S2 (04:41):
Definitely. I think particularly when they were young, I was like, okay,
now I have to facilitate this for them. And I
think what I've learned. I mean, Rory's just turned five
and Anouk is seven now. And I think what I've
learned in the experience of being a parent is that,
you know, the kids find their own way. You know,
I think children naturally are drawn to beautiful, exciting, wondrous things,
even things that we as adults might not necessarily perceive
(05:03):
as being particularly interesting. Kids find their own ways to
relate to the world. They find their own ways of noticing. Um,
and one of the joys I've found is, you know,
like I might on one rainy day. I might remember
this happened recently. I was like, it's raining. We haven't
had rain in ages. It's been a very dry summer
up in the Adelaide Hills. I'm like, let's got on
(05:24):
our rain jackets. And I basically just marched through and
marched them through pelting rain for five days. And you know,
I was thinking, oh, they're going to love the puddle jumping.
They're pretty miserable, honestly, for most of it. But in
the last half hour, they started noticing bubbles in the road,
just probably from the build up of detergent and pollutants.
And they were suddenly so fascinated by these, and I'd
(05:47):
completely disregarded it. By this stage, I was like, no, no, no,
we've got to get home. We're going to go over
this crest. I was so focused on directions, I was
so focused on other things of like, look at this
beautiful vista, which they had no interest in. But instead
I got to see that, you know, their their child
eyes find their own things that interest them. And then
I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, that's kind of extraordinary.
They look amazing. Look at the way they refract the light.
(06:10):
So it's always humbling, I think, to to be a parent.
You think, oh I've got, you know, my kids are
going to grow up this way. But no, they, they
find their own means.
S1 (06:18):
I love that you tried to get them out in
the rain. There's a really nice passage in your book
about you waiting to, um, get on a swing and
all the kids in front of you kind of not
letting you have that chance. And then the rain comes down.
It's like, finally my chance is here, and you're sitting
on that swing, getting pelted until the teachers, um, pull
(06:39):
you in.
S2 (06:39):
I loved it, I've always loved the rain. I've always loved.
I don't know this, like, you know, a really windy day.
I have another really cool memory from when I was
about five years old, of the wind blowing so hard,
and I was in the playground at my school and
all the kids are shrieking, and I just felt like
I could lean into it, like I felt like I
was about to fly. Yeah. It's amazing. I love that,
I love the wild weather.
S1 (07:00):
Um, just on children and birth. And please bear with
me here. Long, long question. Your friend and former colleague
Rebecca Stafford, with whom you founded the literary journal Kill
Your Darlings. Um, once described to me writing a book
as being like childbirth. She said, you forget what it
felt like the first time, which is why you're happy
to do it the next time. Now you've written about
(07:22):
birth in your books. If I remember correctly, you even
sort of consulted ancient midwifery guides in order to sort
of greater understand what it would have been like at
the time. But now, of course, you've had your own
experience of that human event. You even talk about it
quite vividly in the memoir about, um, the the sort
of harrowing emergency of, um, one of your, your, um,
(07:45):
birth experiences, you kind of your knuckles bloodied from punching
the hospital bed. Um, is it different now to to
write about that, having had the experience?
S2 (07:57):
I don't think so. No, I think I was expecting
it to be, you know, when you finally have these
intimate personal experiences you feel or maybe you hope that
they're going to cast a new enlightened insight, cast a
new insight, or maybe just a, um, a greater familiarity
with them. I think what happened instead was that I
had spent so much time, like you say, looking up
(08:20):
in various contexts, the history of midwifery and the various
experiences of women. And, um, and I felt that knowledge
and that kind of familiarity, even on an intellectual level,
was kind of with me when I then had my
own experiences and in, in the case of my daughter,
this birth, um, my first experience, um, I absolutely had
(08:42):
that in mind because there was an instance where things
got quite precarious and there was a practitioner who was being,
you know, without without getting into it with basically didn't
think that it was and then it did suddenly become
that way. And I remember my first instinct when I thought,
this isn't right. This isn't right. Thinking, thinking of everything
(09:03):
I had read and just how extreme this experience has
been for women throughout the years. So I think whilst
that didn't necessarily frighten me, it helped me listen to
my own intuition, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think it,
you know, there's certain physical experiences that giving birth, you know,
provide you a familiarity with. But I would say that
(09:24):
it's not necessarily something that I was wholly ignorant of.
I feel actually that if you listen to the stories
of other people, you can absolutely get a very, very
strong sense of things as they were and are and
continue to be.
S1 (09:37):
I love asking writers questions about process, how they go
about doing it. And I remember when I asked you
about it the first time, you you kind of reflected
that you were very fastidious about routine, kind of protective
even of your writing routine. You were up at 630,
feed the pets, make coffee, have brekkie. Um, then you're
(09:57):
into the study and the desk and the windows in
front of you, and there's some music, or maybe the
reassuring babble of, like, Swedish radio or something playing. You've
got a cat asleep at your feet and a dog
asleep at your feet as well. You have phone reminders
to take a break at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.,
(10:17):
otherwise you won't. Um, and this set goal of like
1000 words per day. Uh, do you still have that
kind of rigorous routine or regimen?
S2 (10:28):
Oh, God. No. I wish that's just. I was just
reminiscing when you were saying that, thinking, oh, my God,
the good old days. I remember that far out. I
had no responsibilities. No. My writing life has been completely
different pretty much since I fell pregnant. I, um, in
in wonderful ways to, too, you know. But I think
there was definitely a period in my life when my
(10:49):
children were very young. Both were terrible sleepers. They're only
just my daughter's only just started sleeping through the night
at seven years old. Oh, God. You know, hard for
her as well. Absolutely. But, you know, it has. This
has a ripple effect upon your entire day. You know,
kind of extraordinary fatigue and also just the responsibility of
looking after very little people and also wanting to spend
(11:11):
time with them. Um, but there was a period of
time where I felt very disoriented and very disconnected from
a creative practice, because probably because I had been so
strict in my routines and so narrow in my concept
of discipline. Hmm. And I think probably it took me
a good five years to find out that actually, they
weren't as necessary as I thought they were. And to
(11:33):
find my way back to writing in a wholly new.
I wouldn't even call it routine practice. Yes, perhaps. But
this one had to be, you know, snatched hours at once.
The kids were down, it had to be thinking, oh great,
that appointment got cancelled. I'm going to I'm going to
start writing in my notes app on my phone. You know,
it's not the it's not the Swedish Babbel and the
(11:53):
candle and the, you know, very protected hours. It's in
some ways a integrating writing into my life as I'm
living it. And so I think for that reason I
have become much more highly focused. You know, it's it's
quite difficult to enter 19th century Prussia with Bluey really
loudly through the wall. Um, but, you know, I struggled.
(12:15):
But now I can do that. Now I can completely
shut down and focus. Um, and it was also a
really good exercise, I think, in a re-evaluation of priorities, um,
because there were some times when I had to physically
kind of pull the blinds down on the window of
my study at home because my children were pressing their
faces and pulling silly faces, and I had a deadline. And,
(12:36):
I mean, I felt terrible. They knew they weren't supposed
to disturb me. They'd snuck out, but it was, you know,
it makes you, I think, um, take the losses and
the moments of failure a little more lightly, because you
know that no matter what happens with the writing, you've
got this other thing going on. So, yeah. So I
think I'd actually say that it's improved me. I think
I'm much more flexible. I think in some ways, um,
(12:58):
I'm much more disciplined in the sense that I'm unfussy.
And I also think that now I, um, I don't
sweat the small stuff in my writing as much as
I once did. But yeah, it's completely different. Totally different.
S1 (13:10):
You also wrote the you wrote a screenplay, which I
mentioned earlier for a Netflix kind of, um, psychological thriller
slash horror movie, run Rabbit Run, filmed in Waikerie, starring
Sarah Snook. Um, you've also worked on screenplays for your
novels The Good People and Devotion. Uh, what do you
enjoy about that process? I understand it's a bit more
(13:33):
kind of collaborative. That must have a kind of push
and pull effect that there would be, uh, difficulty in that,
but also it must be nice to lean on others too.
I also just wonder if it's nice to do something
completely different, like a sort of a palate cleanser, if
you will, between big meaty projects.
S2 (13:53):
Oh yeah, all of the above, I think. Um, I
think I went in for the opportunity at first because
it came knocking on my door, and I was surprised
and delighted by that. And also because so much of
writing and the joy of writing for me comes from
the inherent challenges within it. So I was at the
stage that I heard from Carver Productions, Anna McLeish and
(14:14):
Sarah Shaw, two producers. Uh, they approached me and said,
you know, we think your writing has a visual sensibility.
Have you ever considered writing for film? And at the time,
I was on the brink of starting to write another
historical novel. I wasn't entirely sure what it was about.
I was probably a little sick of the solitude involved
in a lot of novel writing, but also I thought, well, yeah,
(14:36):
I absolutely would love to do that. That sounds just interesting,
mainly because I don't know anything about it. But also.
Oh yeah, that would that would be a good challenge.
You know, this would be like starting out again. This
would be like almost being a debut. And, um, I
also have a very strong intuitive sense about things that
I want to do. I often just jump in. I
can be quite spontaneous in my creative life in ways
(14:58):
that I'm not in my private life. But if someone
has a great concept or a great project idea and
it it enthuses me in the moment, I'm very likely
to say yes. And that's exactly what happened. And then
as the project unfolded and I learned more about what
it entailed, you know, what being a screenwriter entailed, then I, um,
I really enjoyed that collaborative aspect. I knew there would
(15:19):
be a lot of back and forth, but I really
enjoyed being humbled by it in a funny way. You know,
with novels, I, I, I'm a massive rewriter. I do
draft after draft after draft.
S1 (15:30):
God, I remember you describing in the memoir that you
dumped 40,000 words at the start of burial rights and
just started it again.
S2 (15:38):
Yes. And I just and I did that with this
memoir too. Oh my gosh. I've written it like three
times over. But, um, but that's how my process, you know,
it's not really as fast as I'd like it to be,
but that's just how I work. But then with screenwriting,
they were like, all right, go off and, you know,
try and write a draft of this thing. And I
was like, oh God, I don't I don't really know
how to be a screenwriter. And eventually confessed that I
(15:59):
didn't really feel equipped. And they said, well, they gave
me this beautifully generous comment which was just write a
screenplay as a novelist. So I did that, and I
thought it was I thought it was pretty good. And then, um,
you know, we sort of parked it and we had
a meeting and they're like, so send that through whenever
you're ready. And I was like, oh, I have to
show you my first drafts. Like, you have to see
my notes. I was like, it's not good. Like I
(16:20):
like the the bones. But then I'm like, no, no, no,
you got to show us. And so that was a
great that was a great learning curve. Just kind of thinking,
oh my God, I'm just going to have to show this.
Not great, very rough, very unpolished work to these professionals. Um,
but I loved that because it really made me in
their grace. And the ways in which they received sometimes
(16:40):
is very, very hideous drafts. I thought, oh, people understand
this creative process. These are creative people who are interested
in development and understanding of the various stages of it,
and what it takes to get to a final production.
And I really, really loved that. And it made me, um,
it made me all the more willing and interested to
continue working with these people who are very invested in,
(17:02):
in creative process and then working with, um, you know,
the wonderful director Dana Read. That was another learning process again.
And I loved that. I loved the faith that gets
placed in you as a writer, where they say, look,
we think it needs this particular beat or we need
something else. Here you go do that. I trust that
you'll be able to find what it is. I don't
need to direct you in what that might be. And
(17:23):
then you come back with a bunch of options. They're like, yeah,
that's it. That's when you kind of feel that you're
vibrating on the same wavelength creatively, that's just so exhilarating.
And then I think I take some of that energy
back to my novel writing. Yeah.
S1 (17:36):
Another process question in the memoir, you mentioned doing research
for burial rites. Um, and there was this day that
you spent kind of three hours in the National Museum
or the National Archives in, um, in Iceland and took
like 400 photos. Yeah. I'm just wondering how those images
(17:57):
become part of your process. Like, are they pinned to
some gigantic wall with thumbtacks? Because it it made me
think of a memoir I read ages ago, Annie Prue's, um,
Bird Cloud. And it was about like the building of
her sort of dream home in Wyoming. And she talked
about her process, and it was like she had scraps
(18:18):
of paper, handwritten notes, photos, drawings, this massive kind of
tableau along one wall, consuming a table like the size
of a, you know, an office, boardroom table. Um, and
she could just kind of go and walk amongst all
those notes. When she was doing the writing, is there
anything like, yeah, what do you do with all of
(18:40):
those source materials? How do you keep them ordered?
S2 (18:42):
I don't know if they are ordered. Honestly, I keep
on trying to find new methods of of being organized,
but ultimately I just revert to my natural state, which
I think is chaos. Certainly with, um, with burial rites.
I had a giant map, I found a very detailed map,
and I blew it up in color, and I stuck
it on my wall right next adjacent to my computer.
(19:02):
And then the research photos that I thought had a
particular that I wanted to be able to refer to frequently. Um,
whether it was to, you know, just remember that textural
look of, I don't know, a domestic item in a
19th century Icelandic turf farm, or whether it was even
a photograph of a moment when I had a key revelation.
By going through the censuses or the microfiche, I would
(19:25):
stick it on the map as well. So it was,
you know, it gets very much like that. It gets
very a beautiful mind, as you know.
S1 (19:32):
As my little pieces of string connecting.
S2 (19:35):
Yeah, absolutely. You look like an absolute maniac. Um, and
I'm so interested in other people's creative processes. And sometimes
I pick up, you know, things that they do thinking, oh,
this is going to help me even further. So at
the moment, I still put everything up on the wall.
I like to see it. I'm a very visual person.
It's how my memory works. And so I do. I
sort of cover my study walls with all these little
(19:56):
scraps and notes and photographs and, and then I also, um,
I don't know if I'm going to go back to this, actually,
I don't know how successful it was, but I also
keep index notes, you know, the old school kind of
index cards. I did this for devotion because there was
so much I needed to know, and there was also
so much information available. Yeah, prior to that, I tend
to make I tend to do a lot of rewriting again,
(20:18):
just to immerse myself in the research. I keep notebooks
and because they're just for me, I, you know, put
illustrations in them and little notes to myself. So they're
sort of part diaries if I go on a research trip. Um, recipes, proverbs.
This kind of, I guess, this very broad net that
I cast over the time and the people that I'm researching,
(20:39):
I sort of drag and dump in these notebooks and
the index cards, though, that was something that I felt
I needed to do for very easy reference. So but
it was so laborious making them. I mean, I really
got carried away with just the childlike joy of clipping
out bits of notes and pasting them to cards and
then ordering them. You know, honestly, I don't know if
that one's for me, but yeah, all of it. All
of the above.
S1 (21:00):
Did I go into a box in the attic or
do they just get cast to.
S2 (21:03):
They get shoved behind books in my bookshelf?
S1 (21:05):
Yeah. Okay. In the book, this is the new book.
I love the way it described the landscape. When you
first got to Iceland as a 17 year old, it
was all sort of cold and darkness, and you had
so many different ways for describing the darkness and, and
(21:28):
the wonder and how all of that was sort of
mixed in with your homesickness. Um, I lived in the
US for several years, and I vividly remember landing in
the North Country up near Canada at night when it
was covered in snow as well, and it brought back
a lot of memories for me, and a similar sort
of sense of personal confusion about where I was and
(21:50):
what I was doing. Um, now, I kind of similar
to what you've described in your book. I sort of
long for that climate and that the, the muscular sort
of heft of the landscape there, these big high peaks
and deep glacial lakes and, you know, experiences like the
sound of the, the echoey crack of ice in a
(22:12):
frozen lake or they have ice storms there in winter
and the, the branches, all of the tiny little, um,
branches on the trees get covered in ice. And then
in the wind they chime together like little bells, you know,
it's just sort of magical. Um, what natural phenomena do
you miss most about Iceland? This place that you've been
(22:33):
back to so many times is standing on a glacier,
as it's soaking in a hot spring. Is it gazing
at the northern lights like there's so much to it?
S2 (22:41):
Oh, that's like choosing a favorite child. I don't think
I could, um, but I have to say, I mean,
there's a common experience that I have with all of them,
which is, I think the beautiful thing in Iceland is
that you can see for so far, you can see
such great distances. The air is incredibly pure. Um, someone
once said, because there's not very much air traffic. So
I think that allows you to see further than you often,
(23:02):
you know, that you might be accustomed to.
S1 (23:04):
Big sky.
S2 (23:05):
Big skies. We have them here as well. Um, but
also there's a lack of trees. They're increasingly planting them.
But for the most part, when you're standing in the
natural environment, when you're standing in nature and you're looking out,
you can see vast distances, you can see the contours
of the landscape. You can see just how great and
sort of awe inspiring the weather. And the play of
(23:27):
light is upon it. Like you see rain moving through,
you know, in the distance. And my sort of emotional
response to that, outside of being wow, how beautiful is
also oh wow, look how small you are and look
how inconsequential you are. Not in a bad way at all.
In in a fantastic way, in a way that you
feel like you are. There's nothing special about you, but
(23:48):
actually that's what connects you to everything. So it is
this incredible feeling of, um, communion with your natural environment
and actually a deep feeling of belonging, um, that you're
not something which is apart from this, you're a tiny,
tiny speck of something which is much greater than you'll
ever understand, you know, almost kind of a spiritual response,
I guess people might say, um, and I think probably
(24:09):
the most elevated experience of that emotion, that kind of yeah,
both intellectual and emotional response would probably be with the
Northern Lights. I've, um, I saw them so much, and
I have since every time I've gone to Iceland. But
there have been a couple of nights where they have
been particularly strong and have gone on for hours and. Hours.
(24:29):
And it's I don't know, it's like going into a
trance for that time. You feel like you've, I don't know,
taken some sort of mind altering drug. It's a, it's
a massive sort of trip and I loved it. I
loved that so much. So yeah, if I had to
choose anything, I'd probably choose that again.
S1 (24:45):
It does seem like the landscape sort of unlocked something
in your psyche. In the memoir, you describe this conversation
with a woman who I think you were billeted out
with for a night. Um, and it was this chat
you had with her about ghosts and their presence in Iceland.
And this is what you wrote. Even in my few
months of living here, I have seen how the wind
(25:06):
moves the snow along the ground at night like a
spirit looking for rest. How? Sometimes the mountains seem to
possess faces. And how the wind can carry. Sound like
a crying child. Iceland feels like a place where ghosts abide.
There is another air here. The boundaries feel permeable somehow.
So my question then is a simple one, but maybe
with a complicated answer like do you believe in spirits?
S2 (25:28):
Yeah, I do. I believe in, um, I believe in
energy as sort of woo woo as that sounds. But
I mean, I do believe in it without claiming to
understand it or without claiming to have a very specific
understanding of how these things might operate on the world.
I believe in spirits, and I believe in ghosts insofar
as they exist and live in people, even if that's
(25:50):
through an act of imagination. In the same way that
a placebo effect is still an effect, right? Yeah, people
can still be haunted, even if ghosts don't, you know,
scientifically exist. Um, I, I have several family members who
have had very intense and frequent experiences with ghosts, and
I've always been so interested in ghost stories. When I
was in Iceland, I was fascinated by the very a
(26:14):
very specific Icelandic ghost as it is as it exists
in their mythologies, in their folktales. You know, in Iceland,
ghosts are not the sort of vapor in the background.
They're often corporeal. They can move things around. They often have,
you know, bad intent. They can kill you. And, um,
I was fascinated by that and by how much, you know,
(26:35):
ghosts were an embodiment of the fears of the people,
you know, which is always what they are. They're, you know,
ghosts are a projection of so much of what we feel.
And ghost stories always say so much more about the
people telling them than the ghosts themselves. Um, so yeah,
I would, but yes, I, I feel like as much
as I would love to be like, oh, no, clearly not.
(26:56):
They're just, you know, this fabrication or I know I've
heard way too many ghost stories, and I've been too
chilled out and freaked out by moments of bizarre happenings
and coincidences to write them off completely.
S1 (27:10):
Absolutely. There's another passage in your book where you're describing dreams,
and can I just say, some of your dreams sound
absolutely horrifying at different times. This this one you were. uh.
You've woken up after a dream of having your throat
cut and feeling the the warmth of your own blood
on your chest. On your chest. It's it's terrifying. Um,
(27:30):
but what interests me is you wake up and you
want to capture that moment, but you don't want to
capture it in words. So you draw it instead. Are
you somebody that practices drawing and sketching? Is that like
part of what you do? And I don't know, does
it unlock a different kind of creativity or what do
you do with that drawing by the way? Where's that?
S2 (27:50):
I love drawing, I loved art, I studied it in
year 12. Um, I love working with charcoal particularly, but
also just to. I don't think I would ever pursue
it in a vocational sense, but it's definitely something which
I see as connected to writing. Sometimes it's more helpful
in trying to. It gestures towards feeling sometimes, whereas for me,
(28:15):
so much of writing is about trying to achieve a
kind of a perfect distillation or an articulation of something
I wish to express. Sometimes I don't know what that
is yet, so drawing sort of to me allows for
a more nebulous connection or more nebulous or, you know,
a more yeah, I'll leave it there more, a more
nebulous connection to what it is that that's niggling at
(28:37):
me or, or an experience. But yeah, I still draw
quite a lot. My daughter is a, um, is an
incredible artist. She loves it. It's her favorite thing in
the world to do. And, um, she's always asking me
to draw with her, and that's been lovely, actually. That's
so often happens in when you're a parent, you're given
permission and an avenue to return to things that you
loved when you were younger. So I've been doing a
(28:58):
lot more drawing. Um, and it's it's wonderful. I think
it helps my writing in the same way that writing
poetry or just, you know, doing playful word exercises helps, too.
It's just part of the play. It's just, yeah, part
of just being creative without, you know, stakes resting on it,
without there necessarily needing to be a specific output. And that's,
a wonderful way to stoke the fires, I think.
S1 (29:20):
Fantastic. I feel like I should give it a shot myself.
I used to be really into drawing as a kid
and my son is, he's 12 and we found this old, um,
draftsman sort of table in the hard rubbish recently with
really rusty metal base and then a top that needed
sanding down. And so we sanded it down and stained
it up and lacquered it and everything. And now it
(29:41):
sits in a corner with a stool, and he's got
all of his art supplies, and he's like a pig in,
in mud, sitting there drawing away. I feel like I
should pull up a stool with him and have a sketch.
S2 (29:52):
It's something really lovely that. Yeah, she's she's demanded it
of me. And now that we've started, I love it.
But you should absolutely do that. Yeah. Hard recommend.
S1 (29:59):
Speaking of spirits, writing about the Agnes of your imagination,
you note that there's like, kind of there's truth in
your approximation of her. Um, just as there's truth in the, um, well,
just as it's one of many truths and potentially one
of many falsehoods because there are so many parts of
the historical record, as you describe it, that conflict or
(30:23):
are different or are just outright false. The only difference,
or one of the differences that I see, though, is
the kind of scope and reach of your truth that
your truth is sent out into the world, that it's
become a bestseller, right? And that it will potentially become
a film. And then it kind of becomes the established,
(30:49):
albeit unofficial, truth. Like, how do you feel about that? Like,
how do you reconcile having kind of the the final
word in many ways.
S2 (31:00):
Oh, that's a that's a good question. I do think
about it a great deal. I'm very grateful to, you know,
my younger self, when I started deciding how I was
going to write this book for choosing a quite laborious path, um,
I mean, when I started writing burial rites, it was
going to, you know, it was a component of a thesis.
I thought, you know, my mum and two examiners would
(31:22):
read it so I could kind of do what I
wanted with it. But even at that early stage, I
felt a very strong, I guess, ethical obligation to do
the work. Um, I was very aware of myself as
an outsider writing about a culture that I did not
grow up in, about a nationality and a nation of
which I don't have a, you know, a passport. I'm
(31:43):
not a citizen of that place. Um, in many ways,
I am a stranger and I'm an outsider. But I
felt that, um, so I really there was a period
of time where, first of all, I weighed up whether
or not I was someone who had a right to
this story. Um, I felt that I did because I
felt that my perspective was necessary. Um, I felt that
(32:05):
it was a balancing perspective. And I also actually thought, well,
you may be an outsider, but often outsiders have, you know,
being on the periphery, you've got the greatest view. you.
S1 (32:13):
Yeah.
S2 (32:13):
And I also thought, well, if you speak the language,
you're not you don't have a passing interest. You know,
this is a place that means a great deal to you.
You're you have, you know, a kind of self-perceived integrity
within your intent. Um, but all the same, you should
really make sure that you get you get it right.
And so I did 18 months of very intensive research.
And that included not only researching the events of, you know,
(32:37):
that I was writing about, but it also included an
understanding of 19th century Icelandic life, you know, social life,
you know, economic forces, political events. And, um, and so
I did that's what I did. And I became completely
obsessed and I think acquired a pretty decent level of
familiarity and knowledge of that time. And then, of course,
when the book kind of came out and was published
(32:57):
in the way it did, I started hearing from Icelanders,
and I started hearing from relatives of the people whose
ancestors were portrayed in the in the book. And all
of them, you know, even if they perhaps disagreed with
my Representation. The subjective representation of certain events said, you know,
but it's clear that you've you've you've done the work,
(33:19):
you've studied it and you know, and then also, when
I was in Iceland for the Icelandic translation, Icelanders have
this weekly book show and, um, which is wonderful for
such a small nation. And I was invited to go
on it, and I was in hair and makeup, and
the host came down and visited me and said, you know,
we're going to have a great show. But Hannah, is
it okay? I hear you speak Icelandic. Is it okay
(33:41):
if we talk a little in Icelandic before we do
the rest of the interview in English? And that was
a moment for me where I thought, oh yeah, this
is this is my way in. This is how I've
been admitted. And perhaps if I have a right to
tell this story, this is how I've earned it through,
through my understanding of the language. Um, and so we
did that and I've. Yeah, it's been it's been a
really interesting process. I think, um, one of the things
(34:02):
I have had to do is be very open with
the fact that I don't pretend to know everything, that
this is still a novel. Um, and that while many,
many people might see it now as the dominant narrative, um,
there are others out there and anyone who you know
wants to learn more should should access the same source
as I accessed, which is still available. So I think
(34:24):
maybe that's it. I try not to be too, um,
you know, I try not to claim this story as
my own too much. Just say, well, I am one
of many who have who have made a contribution, and
now you can make up your mind.
S1 (34:34):
The success of the book, of course, has given you
some some great experiences. You write, um, in the memoir about,
you know, having fun on the tour and not not
so much the the big parties. In fact, whenever you
describe one of those parties, you always seem to describe
either leaving.
S2 (34:49):
Early.
S1 (34:50):
Or sort of popping out to a quiet alcove to
have a conversation one on one. Um, the the joy
of it for you seemed to be this simple reward
of knowing that people have read your words and enjoyed them,
and you can talk to them about that. Given the
topic on this tour isn't, you know, um, isn't history
or fiction. It's, um. It's memoir. It's your life. Um,
(35:14):
as that made it more fun or. Or less.
S2 (35:19):
Well, I haven't had a, you know, I'm still quite
early on in since this book has came out. Came
out about a week ago. Um, and so I'm still
getting used to talking about it. It feels quite a
strange thing in some ways, to be able to speak
of my own life as a central kind of theme,
I guess I don't I mean, I really ate my
had to eat my words when this memoir came out,
(35:40):
because I remember telling friends of mine that I would
never write a memoir because I felt then, and to
a certain extent, I still do feel this way, that
my life is just not interesting enough. You know, like
I've yes, I'm a writer and I think that I
have these deep thoughts, but, I mean, I'm not doing
really anything quite extraordinary. And I certainly didn't think anyone
would be interested. And the only reason this book came
(36:00):
out was because it started. The concept didn't really leave
me alone in the same way my novels were these
ideas that would start to kind of follow me about,
and eventually I just get to the point where I'm like, oh, fine,
then I'll write it down. Um, but yeah, I do
feel slightly uncomfortable, I guess, with the with the specific
gaze on my own life, but it also makes me
(36:21):
think how glad I am that in this, you know,
the rewriting process of this memoir, I decided to cut
a lot of what I have written. Um, you know,
being new to the genre, I hadn't realized how important
it is to set your boundaries, both in terms of,
you know, what you're going to cover, but also in
terms of how much personal information are you going to reveal? Um,
(36:42):
and I remember when Burial Rights and my other novels
came out, there were always a couple of things that
would happen through the writing process or research process or
even event when I was touring around with them. And
I would think to myself, oh, that one's for me.
You know, I'm not going to relate this as an anecdote.
That's gonna be my little sacred thing that I get
to keep for myself. And so much of this book
was a realization, and in many ways, as a telling
(37:04):
of many of those stories that I've kept to myself
and now finally feel ready to share. Um, but even
still again, within this memoir, I mention all the writing
I've chucked out. Most of that is information. Say that,
for example, about relationships or about something that was slightly
still connected to the central themes, but slightly outside. You know,
that tight trinity of Iceland writing and, you know, my
(37:27):
relationship to both. And so, yeah, I'm very, very glad
I did take that out. Um, I think it still
would have been good content, but now I'm those are
the stories that again, that they're mine. Maybe one day
down the road I'll feel ready to tell them. But yeah,
I'm glad I cut them from the pages. And that helps.
I think whenever you're feeling slightly exposed or you're feeling
vulnerable and talking about your story or talking about your family,
(37:49):
I think to myself, well, they don't they don't know everything.
S1 (37:52):
Well, thank you so much for coming in and talking
about yourself, writing about yourself, given what you've just said.
It's been a real pleasure.
S2 (38:02):
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've loved it.
S1 (38:06):
That was novelist Hannah Kent on the latest Good Weekend talks.
You can hear Kent speak this Sunday at the Melbourne
Writers Festival, coming soon. On the show, we chat with
globally renowned sleep expert Professor Matthew Walker about rest and reinvigoration,
dreams and creativity. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember
to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts
(38:28):
and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations. Good Weekend
Talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age proud newsrooms powered by subscriptions to support
independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age?
This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Konrad
Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery, with technical assistance from
(38:50):
Cormac Lally. Tammy Mills is our executive producer, Tom McKendrick
is head of audio and Greg Callahan is the acting
editor of Good Weekend.
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