Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
The last execution in Iceland. One woman's side.
For you if
you want to understand how a society decides who deserves to die
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Agnes Magnúsdóttir was the last person executed in Iceland in 1829, convicted of murder. Kent — an Australian writer who fell in love with Iceland — spent years in the archives reconstructing Agnes's story. The novel gives her the interior life the court record denied her. A visitor dispatch that earned its intimacy through research and reverence. One of the most atmospheric books on this shelf — the Icelandic winter, the farmhouse, the priest assigned to prepare Agnes for death who finds himself unable to believe she is what they say.
Where This Book Lives
- Setting
- Iceland • Scandinavia
- Voice
- An outside perspective on Iceland
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
Flip the lens
Same country. Now hear it from the other side.
