Ruth Starke in conversation with Hannah Kent

Abstract

Hannah Kent has enjoyed enormous international success with her first novel, Burial Rites, a reimagining of the life and death of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman to be executed in Iceland for murder. Published in Australia in May 2013, the book has also been published in the UK and in the USA, and in over twenty other countries. Jennifer Lawrence will play Agnes in the forthcoming movie to be directed by Gary Ross, the director of The Hunger Games. Hannah was born in Adelaide in 1985 and grew up in the Adelaide Hills where her family still live. Hannah completed her BCW (Hons) in 2008 at Flinders University, where she is currently completing her PhD. Burial Rites is the creative component of that doctoral thesis and Ruth Starke, who interviews Hannah below, is her principal supervisor.