Hannah Kent: On Burial Rites, her first novel, and the imposter phenomenon

Hannah Kent's first novel is shaping up to be the must-read for the autumn. Receiving rave reviews and keeping us glued to the pages of our preview copy, we're already hooked on the 27-year-old novellist's storytelling.

So we jumped at the chance to find out more about Burial Rites' spooky Icelandic setting and how Hannah's beaten her 'imposter syndrome' to create a masterpiece.

Burial Rites

The story is that of a woman condemned to death for the murder of two men in Iceland in the 19th century. An original choice and subject matter most of us won't come into contact with. But why Iceland?
 
"I lived there for a year as an exchange student back in 2003," Hannah explains.

"I was 17 at the time, and keen to go out and experience something of the world before I settled into further study. Iceland seemed to be the most adventurous place I could think of, and the promise of snow (which, as a South Australian, I’d never seen before) sealed my decision to leave."

While there she came across the true story of Agnes Magnusdottir.

"One day I was driven through an extraordinary tract of landscape in the north of Iceland, comprising hundreds of small hills rising out of an old glacial valley. When I asked my companions if the area was significant, they pointed to three small hills that lay quite closely together. There, they said, was where Iceland’s last execution occurred, over 150 years ago.

"I pressed them for more details and discovered that a servant woman called Agnes had been beheaded for her role in the brutal murder of two sleeping men. From that point onwards, a deep and relentless curiosity about Agnes and her sad fate grew in me. I wanted to know who she was, and what circumstances had contributed to her death on those hills.

"Fast forward several years, and – still unabatedly fascinated – I started researching the novel that would become Burial Rites.
 
It's obvious as you read the novel that a huge amount of research has gone into making the details as near to life as possible.

"It was important to me that I research Agnes’s story thoroughly," says Hannah. "I wanted to move past the stereotype of a ‘wicked woman’ and explore her ambiguity, but to do that successfully I knew I had to not only become familiar with her biographical information, but the social, political and cultural climate she lived in."

To do this Hannah read 'everything I could get my hands on' including history books, journals written by English scientists visiting the country, fiction by people such as Halldor Laxness, recipes for blood sausage and moss porridge, academic statistics on smallpox epidemics and sheep-grazing techniques - everything!

She also spent six intensive weeks researching in Iceland’s national archives and visiting the places she lived, worked and died.

"It’s hard to draw a clear line between fact and fiction, however, the parts of Burial Rites that seem most strange and unlikely are in actuality the most factual, drawn-from-the-record scenes in the book.

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Writing
 
Like many authors, Hannah admits procrastination was never far away:

"I found the hardest part of the writing process to be cultivating the discipline it requires to sit in front of a computer for long periods of time each day. It’s amazing how tempting the most menial of domestic chores can be when you’re only 150 words in and already frustrated at your own perceived lack of talent. There were times when I spent hours vacuuming to avoid writing. The cleaner the house, the more dire my writing situation

"I found that my desire to procrastinate often went hand-in-hand with my moments of self-doubt. The only way of battling both was to resist the first and have patience with the other.
 
"The best bit is when you create something and you know immediately that it has a heartbeat."

In a recent TED talk Hannah, who's also completing her PHD and is also deputy editor an co-founder of journal Kill Your Darlings, spoke about what she calls her 'Imposter Phenomenon'. This boils down to a feeling that she's not good enough - something many of us are all to familiar with, even if we've never heard the name.
 
"For a long time I didn’t even realise that I was experiencing what I now know as the imposter phenomenon.

"I thought that while everyone else was truly gifted and capable, I had somehow fooled my way into success or recognition, and that it was only a matter of time before everyone found out I was a fraud. I was terrified, in fact, of being discovered as the unskilled, uncomprehending no-hoper I felt I was," she explains.

"I only began to come to terms with these feelings when I realised that I wasn’t alone. Hearing other people (commonly women) I admired and knew to be genuinely talented and skilled speak of their own feelings of fraudulence made me realise that we’re either all imposters, or none of us are.

"I almost found it laughable to hear others attribute their promotions or awards to luck or ‘being in the right place at the right time’ when they were so clearly being rewarded for hard work and dedication. It made me reconsider my own attitude."

Hannah expains that she still has recurring feelings about this but has learned to recognise them.

"The first step to understanding imposter feelings and learning not to trust them is to speak with others and realise that it’s incredibly common. Recognise that you may not be able to get rid of these feelings completely and at once, but that you are certainly not alone in experiencing them. Accept them without dwelling on them. As Benedict Carey, writing for the New York times, commented: ‘If feelings of phoniness were all bad, it seems unlikely that they would be familiar to so many emotionally well-adapted people.’"

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The future

Despite the aforementioned PHD and other commitments, Hannah is keen to get to work on her next novel.

"I’ve started the research for it and am looking forward to beginning the writing process in the next few months.

"Without giving too much away, I can say that it will be set in Ireland (in County Kerry to be precise) in the 1820s. I’ve always been very interested in folklore and superstition, and I’d like for this novel to explore the way in which those who lack agency might use superstition to assert themselves in the world, as well as disempower others. "

Recommended reading

I have just read two spectacular memoirs. Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. Both consider life’s grand themes – death, art, love, survival – in two vastly different and very personal stories of self-awakening and change. They’re both also beautifully written.

Eleanor Catton’s new novel The Luminaries is just extraordinary: spectacular in every regard, and with prose to die for. I’m currently re-reading Halldor Laxness’s novel Independent People, which is one of my favourite books set in Iceland. I’ve been recommending it to so many people lately, I couldn’t resist the urge to return to it myself.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent is out now in hardback on Picador.