About Burial Rites In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir 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 Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Tóti, 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? ‘Burial Rites is an accomplished gem, its prose as crisp and sparkling as its northern setting.’ GERALDINE BROOKS ‘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, Orange Prize-winning author of The Song of Achilles HANNAH KENT BURIAL RITES Contents Cover About Burial Rites Dedication A Note on Icelandic Names A Note on Icelandic Pronunciation Map Epigraph Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Epilogue Author’s Note Acknowledgements About Hannah Kent Copyright For my parents A NOTE ON ICELANDIC NAMES Icelanders have traditionally used a patronymic naming system, whereby a child’s last name is derived from his or her father’s first name, together with an affixation of -són or -dóttir. Agnes Magnúsdóttir is therefore literally translated as Agnes Magnús’s daughter. Because of this system, blood members of an Icelandic family may all have different surnames. A NOTE ON ICELANDIC PRONUNCIATION For ease of pronunciation, not all Icelandic letters have been used in this printing. The consonants ð (Ð) and þ (Þ) have been replaced with ‘d’ and ‘th’ respectively. The pronunciation of certain vowels are conditioned by accents: á as the ow in owl é as the ye in yet í as the ee in been ó as the o in note ö as in the French fleur ú as the oo in moon ý as the ee in been æ as the i in wife au as in the French oeil ei as the ay in way ‘I WAS WORST TO THE ONE I LOVED BEST.’ Laxdæla Saga