Hannah Kent Hannah Kent i(A117884 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Hannah Kent is a writer and editor. She co-founded Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings in 2010 and has served as deputy editor for the publication. She has also worked as an editorial assistant at Australian Book Review. Her creative and critical writing has appeared in The Big Issue, Australian Book Review, Transnational Literature, Kill Your Darlings, Readings Monthly and Voiceworks. In 2011, she was a judge of Melbourne University/The Australian Centre's Peter Blazey Fellowship for Life Writing. She has worked towards a PhD in Creative Writing at Flinders University, and has lived in Adelaide and Melbourne.

Kent won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2011 for her manuscript Burial Rites, which was published by Pan Macmillan in 2013.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Voted number 16 in the Booktopia Top 50 Favourite Australian Authors for 2018

Personal Awards

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Devotion Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2021 22127333 2021 single work novel historical fiction

'Prussia, 1836

'Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature — she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity...until she meets Thea.

'Ocean, 1838

'The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God's law and at odds with their King's order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne's heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break.

'The whale passed. The music faded.

'South Australia, 1838

'A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible ... is devotion.

'This long-awaited novel demonstrates Hannah Kent's sublime ability with language that creates an immersive, transformative experience for the reader. Devotion is a book to savour.' (Publication summary)

2023 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2022 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
2022 longlisted Voss Literary Prize
2022 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Audiobook of the Year Narrated by Emily Wheaton.
2022 shortlisted Booksellers Choice Award BookPeople Book of the Year Adult Fiction Book of the Year
2022 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2022 longlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover designed by Sandy Cull.
2022 shortlisted Indie Awards Fiction
y separately published work icon The Good People Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2016 10172836 2016 single work novel historical fiction

'The fires on the hills smouldered orange as the women left, pockets charged with ashes to guard them from the night. Watching them fade into the grey fall of snow, Nance thought she could hear Maggie's voice. A whisper in the dark.

'"Some folk are born different, Nance. They are born on the outside of things, with a skin a little thinner, eyes a little keener to what goes unnoticed by most. Their hearts swallow more blood than ordinary hearts; the river runs differently for them."

'Nóra Leahy has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year, and is now burdened with the care of her four-year-old grandson, Micheál. The boy cannot walk, or speak, and Nora, mistrustful of the tongues of gossips, has kept the child hidden from those who might see in his deformity evidence of otherworldly interference.

'Unable to care for the child alone, Nóra hires a fourteen-year-old servant girl, Mary, who soon hears the whispers in the valley about the blasted creature causing grief to fall upon the widow's house.

'Alone, hedged in by rumour, Mary and her mistress seek out the only person in the valley who might be able to help Micheál. For although her neighbours are wary of her, it is said that old Nance Roche has the knowledge. That she consorts with Them, the Good People. And that only she can return those whom they have taken...' (Publication summary)

2018 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2017 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
2017 shortlisted Readings Prizes Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
2017 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2017 shortlisted The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
2017 shortlisted Indie Awards Fiction
y separately published work icon Burial Rites 2013 Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2013 Z1828606 2013 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 1 units)

'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 out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul. As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes's ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal 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 personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?' (Publisher's blurb)

2015 shortlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2014 shortlisted Voss Literary Prize
2014 shortlisted National Book Awards (UK) International Author of the Year
2014 winner Davitt Award Readers' Choice Award
2014 winner Davitt Award Best Debut
2014 shortlisted Davitt Award Best Adult Crime Novel
2014 inaugural winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Booktopia People's Choice Award
2014 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2014 shortlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
2014 shortlisted The Stella Prize
2014 winner Indie Awards Debut Fiction
2014 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards People's Choice Award
2013 winner 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature The Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize
2013 shortlisted Guardian First Book Award
2013 shortlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
2014 finalist Barry Award Best First Novel
2014 shortlisted Women's Prize Trust Awards Women's Prize for Fiction (UK)
2014 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Fiction
2011 inaugural winner Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award
2014 joint winner The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist of the Year
2014 winner Australian Booksellers Association Awards BookPeople Book of the Year
Last amended 1 Feb 2018 12:01:07
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X