Intelligence Squared

How does a nation’s language shape its identity? Hannah Kent on her year in Iceland

November 17, 2025

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  • Hannah Kent's memoir, *Always Home, Always Homesick*, was prompted by a personal crisis during the 2020 lockdown, leading her to re-examine how her year in Iceland shaped her identity and writing. 
  • Learning Icelandic provided Hannah Kent with a profound, soulful understanding of Icelandic culture, history, and identity, going far beyond mere communication. 
  • Iceland's deeply ingrained literary culture, evidenced by high literacy rates and traditions like the 'Jolabokaflod' (Christmas book flood), directly validated Kent's desire to pursue writing as a vocation when she felt discouraged in Australia. 

Segments

Memoir Inspiration and Timing
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(00:04:43)
  • Key Takeaway: Hannah Kent initially vowed never to write a memoir but was compelled to reflect on her 17-year-old year in Iceland after receiving memorabilia during the 2020 lockdown.
  • Summary: Kent felt disconnected and struggled to write following the birth of her son during the national lockdown. Reviewing old diaries revealed a parallel between her past desire to write and her current lack of direction. This reflection led her to examine how Icelandic culture had shaped her identity and writing trajectory.
Always Home, Always Homesick Meaning
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(00:08:39)
  • Key Takeaway: The title Always Home, Always Homesick reflects the bittersweet feeling of belonging to two places simultaneously, including being homesick for the self one is when speaking another language.
  • Summary: The title arose from Kent’s dreams about Iceland during lockdown and the conventional homesickness for the country. It also explores the feeling of incompleteness when unable to access the language and express oneself in that alternate linguistic self. This feeling resonates with many emigrants who belong elsewhere even when settled in a new home.
Writing as Creative Transportation
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(00:11:09)
  • Key Takeaway: Writing, especially about Iceland, serves as a way to channel restlessness and mentally transport the author back to the landscape when physical travel is impossible.
  • Summary: Kent views writing as a means to place herself back in Iceland when she could not travel there physically. This desire fueled her first novel, Burial Rites, as the closest approximation to being in the country. Writing allows for a continuous renewal of wonder and engagement with the world.
Value of Language Acquisition
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(00:12:12)
  • Key Takeaway: Acquiring a new language, like Icelandic, reveals the history embedded in syntax, proverbs, and unique vocabulary, fundamentally altering one’s understanding of culture.
  • Summary: Kent learned that language is far more than swapping words; it involves understanding syntax and words that do not exist in one’s mother tongue, such as the Icelandic word kveldwach (evening wake). This linguistic access helped her understand how stories and sagas maintained Icelandic identity through colonization. Learning a language offers access to the soul of a people and questions one’s own ingrained habits.
Accidental Icelandic Language Immersion
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(00:17:12)
  • Key Takeaway: Kent began learning Icelandic in an unconventional manner by joining a local theatre group where she was tasked with cleaning up fake blood after stage murders.
  • Summary: Upon arriving in 2003, Kent was sent to a remote village where no formal Icelandic classes were available for English speakers. She accidentally joined a local theatre company that was staging a play involving brutal murders. Her initial vocabulary acquisition focused on words related to the stage production, such as ‘blood’ (bloss) and ‘ghost’ (druge), learning the language ‘from the grave up’.
Iceland’s Validation of Writing
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(00:20:59)
  • Key Takeaway: Landing in Iceland, a country where literature is central to identity, validated Kent’s desire to write professionally when she felt it was treated as a mere hobby back home.
  • Summary: Kent felt her placement in Iceland was fated, as she arrived feeling talked out of writing as a serious vocation. She found validation in Iceland’s culture, where one in ten people write a book and literary events are prime-time television features. This environment directly influenced her decision to study creative writing upon returning to Australia.
Validation Through Poetry in Class
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(00:25:47)
  • Key Takeaway: An intimidating Icelandic teacher recognized Kent’s secret poetry writing during class and responded not with punishment, but with encouragement and a book of Icelandic nature poems.
  • Summary: While supposed to be studying German, Kent was caught writing poetry in her Icelandic class. The teacher inscribed the book Cold Was That Beauty, Icelandic Nature Poems to her, ‘From one poet to another.’ He then told her seriously, ‘If you keep writing, you will be published one day,’ allowing her to write poetry instead of assignments thereafter.
Inspiration for Burial Rites
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(00:32:41)
  • Key Takeaway: The novel Burial Rites was inspired by hearing the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, Iceland’s last executed person, which resonated with Kent’s own feelings of isolation.
  • Summary: Kent first heard about Agnes Magnúsdóttir while traveling past the execution site during her lonely initial months in Iceland. She was unsatisfied with the sparse, dismissive accounts of Agnes’s motives, feeling an emotional resonance with the isolated woman. This unresolved curiosity and recurring dreams about Agnes led Kent to research and write the novel to explore who Agnes was beyond the crime.
Impact of Burial Rites Success
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(00:40:48)
  • Key Takeaway: The success of Burial Rites culminated in a full-circle moment when a plaque quoting the novel was installed at Agnes Magnúsdóttir’s execution site in Iceland.
  • Summary: Kent felt anxiety about writing about an Icelandic historical figure as an Australian outsider, but the Icelandic public showed generosity. Her rusty Icelandic skills served as evidence of deeper engagement, which helped ease concerns. The installation of plaques featuring quotes from her novel alongside historical accounts confirmed her contribution to the contemporary understanding of the case.
Future of Writing About Iceland
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(00:44:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Kent anticipates continuing to write about Iceland because returning to the country and speaking Icelandic alters her qualities, making her miss that ‘slightly altered’ self when she is away.
  • Summary: The yearning to be in Iceland and speak the language is tied to accessing a different perspective and a different version of herself. She loves the challenge of articulating the stunning landscape that eludes easy description. Furthermore, her Icelandic family continues to share new stories, suggesting future work on the country is inevitable.