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Hannah Kent

Australia (b.1985)

Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. As a teenager she travelled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange, where she first heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir.

Hannah is the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award.

Burial Rites is her first novel.

Genres: Historical

New and upcoming books

November 2025

Always Home, Always Homesick

Novels

   Burial Rites (2013)
   The Good People (2017)
   Devotion (2022)

Non fiction show

Award nominations

	2017 Walter Scott Prize for Best Historical Novel (nominee) : The Good People
	2015 Dublin Literary Award (nominee) : Burial Rites
	2014 Women's Prize For Fiction (nominee) : Burial Rites
	2014 Barry Award for Best First Novel (nominee) : Burial Rites
	2013 Guardian First Book Award (nominee) : Burial Rites

Hannah Kent recommends

A Beautiful Family (2025)
Jennifer Trevelyan
"An absolutely riveting read. A Beautiful Family held me captive from the first page to the last, both through Trevelyan's uncanny ability to maintain inexorable tension throughout, and her wholly believable narration of a ten-year-old trying to make sense of the adult world around her. I loved it."

The Tarot Reader of Versailles (2025)
Anya Bergman
"A passionate indictment of the patriarchy ... a vibrant exaltation of the resilience of women ... Anya Bergman summons a historic witch trial with breathtaking detail and immediacy."

Days of Light (2025)
Megan Hunter
"Days of Light is sublime. Wielding tremendous emotional power, it is a novel that is both raw and reverent, attuned to the intricacies of loss, desire, hope and how to be in the world."

And Then She Fell (2023)
Alicia Elliott
"I could not put this book down. And Then She Fell is one of the most mesmeric, intoxicatingly original novels I have read in recent years, with a central character I will carry with me for a very long time."

Dirt Town (2022)
Hayley Scrivenor
"Dirt Creek is a remarkable debut, Hayley Scrivenor masterful in her deft handling of the tensions underpinning a small, regional town, and the complex characters that populate it. You will not be able to put it down."

The Shut Ins (2021)
Katherine Brabon
"A mesmeric wonder of a book."

An Unlikely Spy (2021)
Rebecca Starford
"An Unlikely Spy gripped me to the end: I devoured it. Rebecca Starford has created an exceptional novel about World War II, bringing 1940s England to life in formidable, compelling detail and thrusting the reader into a world of wartime spies, betrayal and surprising revelation. What a rare treat to find a novel that offers both white-knuckled suspense and evocative, beautiful prose. I loved it."

Life After Truth (2021)
Ceridwen Dovey
"A sublime gem of a novel."

The Bass Rock (2020)
Evie Wyld
"A dark, gristly marvel of a novel. The Bass Rock held me in thrall from cover to cover. Evie Wyld is a gothic genius: her narrative of the violence inflicted on women throughout the centuries and the seething, female anger left in its wake left me with a deep sense of disquiet that will doubtless remain for years to come."

The Doll Factory (2019)
Elizabeth Macneal
"This brilliant literary thriller gripped me from the opening page and didn’t relinquish its hold until I’d read the final sentence. The Doll Factory conjures 1850s London in all its grime and glory, possibility and restriction in absorbing, immersive detail. Elizabeth Macneal has created that rare thing: a beautifully researched historical novel with a plot to stop your heart. If this is her first book, I can barely wait to see what she writes next."

Long Bay (2018)
Eleanor Limprecht
"A moving and vividly realised novel. Limprecht is a fine writer."

The Museum of Modern Love (2018)
Heather Rose
"A glorious novel, meditative and special in a way that defies easy articulation."

The Toymaker (2017)
Liam Pieper
"Hugely memorable. The Toymaker is an unflinching examination of the dark instinct for survival that lies in all of us."

The Restorer (2017)
Michael Sala
"I would defy anyone to read this story and remain unmoved."

The Butcher's Hook (2016)
Janet Ellis
"Utterly mesmeric."

The Miniaturist (2014)
(Miniaturist, book 1)
Jessie Burton
"Utterly transporting, The Miniaturist is one of those rare debut novels that excels in every regard. The past is brought to life in potent, sensory detail: one feels steeped in it. Burton's prose beguiles the reader, while a riptide of a plot takes hold with an unrelenting grip of suspense. My first instinct on finishing this book was to immediately read it again."

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