The multi-award winning debut bestseller from the author of The Good People, with new novel Devotion out now.

In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.

Agnes is sent to wait on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson and his family, who are horrified and avoid Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her. As the summer months fall away to winter, Agnes's story begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn't she?

Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about freedom and the ways we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, and asks: how can one woman endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

WINNER FOR INDIE AWARDS 2014
WINNER FOR VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD 2014
WINNER FOR FAW CHRISTINA STEAD AWARD 2014
WINNER ABA NIELSEN BOOKDATA BOOKSELLERS' CHOICE AWARD 2014
WINNER FOR ABIA LITERARY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014
WINNER FOR SMH BEST YOUNG AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST 2014
WINNER FOR ABIA/BOOKTOPIA PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD 2014
WINNER FOR DAVITT AWARDS DEBUT FICTION 2014
WINNER FOR DAVITT AWARDS READER'S CHOICE 2014
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2013
SHORTLISTED FOR NIB WAVERLEY AWARD FOR LITERATURE 2013
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2014
SHORTLISTED FOR BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2014
SHORTLISTED FOR VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION 2014
SHORTLISTED FOR ALS GOLD MEDAL 2014
SHORTLISTED FOR VOSS LITERARY AWARD 2014
SHORTLISTED FOR NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2014

Praise for Burial Rites

'Burial Rites is an accomplished gem, its prose as crisp and sparkling as its northern setting' - Geraldine Brooks

'Burial Rites is beautiful and compelling . . . it's the announcement of a writer to watch.' - Guardian

'A gripping tale.' - New York Times

'Kent is to be commended for being drawn to a story and a character rather than any narrow cultural agenda. Burial Rites is far removed from us in time and place and, ironically, this fact makes it an intimate experience.' - Sydney Morning Herald

'The most talked about Australian debut novel in years.' - Australian

'An outstandingly good debut . . . I found myself spellbound . . . Kent has done a great deal of research and transformed its results into a work of art.' - Literary Review

'A taut, atmospheric tale, compellingly told' - Irish Independent

'A story of swirling sagas, poetry...Holds an exhilaration that borders on the sublime.' - Sunday Telegraph

'Kent is an Australian, but her beautiful first novel has the extraordinary setting of Iceland in the 1820s . . . a wonderfully strange and haunting story.' - The Times

'One of the best "Scandinavian" crime novels I have read . . . Hannah Kent's prose is extraordinarily terse and precise as she tells the story from several different viewpoints . . . and the cruelty of human beings is described with vivid intensity. Yet the beauty and fascination of this way of life is movingly portrayed, as is the spirit of its highly literate people. Kent's immersion in Icelandic lore seems total, though she came from the other side of the world. Great stories are universal.' - Independent

'Burial Rites is a debut of rare sophistication and beauty' - Observer

'A remarkable achievement . . . Burial Rites will stand comparison with Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang.' - Sunday Times

'So gripping I wanted to rush through the pages, but so beautifully written I wanted to linger over every sentence. Hannah Kent's debut novel is outstanding.' - Madeline Miller