Few writers possess the lyrical precision and emotional depth of Hannah Kent, and in Always Home, Always Homesick, she turns her gaze inward to explore the places and stories that made her who she is. Known for her bestselling debut Burial Rites, Kent has long been celebrated for her ability to merge haunting atmosphere with deep humanity. In this new memoir, she offers a love letter to Iceland the land that shaped her voice, her imagination, and her understanding of home.
The story begins in 2003, when a seventeen-year-old Kent arrives in Iceland as a Rotary exchange student. The young Australian, barely out of high school, finds herself dropped into a frozen, alien world of darkness, snow, and myth. Her first host family is polite but distant, the language impossible to master, and the loneliness nearly unbearable. Yet amid the isolation, something begins to shift. The landscape its glacial stillness, its mountains that seem alive, its ghostly wind seeps into her bones. Iceland, at first a foreign place, becomes a part of her.
Kent recounts this early period with the poetic intimacy of a novelist and the sharp eye of a journalist. As reviewer Marianne beautifully summarized, “Homesickness, which she tried to hide, featured large until she was eventually able to communicate better in Icelandic, joined a theater group, and was able to make friends.” When she leaves, Kent feels as though her “bones have knitted with this place.” This profound connection will later inspire the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman executed in Iceland, which became Burial Rites.
Always Home, Always Homesick traces that creative journey the return trips, the obsessive research, the moments of serendipity that made the novel possible. Kent vividly recalls poring over fragile historical documents in the Icelandic National Archives and wrestling with the limits of recorded truth. She realizes that history, like memory, is never fixed. “I have always accepted that historical records might contain mistakes,” she writes, “but now I see they can be positively error-riddled. History, I decide, is prismatic, multi-faceted. It needs to be regarded from many angles.”
The memoir’s power lies not only in its literary insights but in its spiritual undercurrents. Kent writes of Iceland’s ghosts, its ethereal light, and the mysterious permeability between life and death. She notes how “the wind moves the snow along the ground at night, like a spirit looking for rest,” and how mountains “seem to possess faces.” It is this ability to perceive beauty in bleakness that has always defined Kent’s work, and here, it takes center stage.
Reviewer Fiona called the memoir “a very interesting and enjoyable read,” particularly for those who loved Burial Rites and want to understand its origins. Andrea, who listened to the audiobook, praised Kent’s narration as “mellifluous” and “perfection for her accents and pronunciation.” Both agree that Always Home, Always Homesick feels like a homecoming for the author, and for readers who have followed her since that stunning debut.
While it is framed as a memoir, the book reads like a lyrical travelogue, rich with meditations on language, belonging, and creativity. It is about how art emerges from the spaces between cultures, how homesickness can transform into inspiration, and how light both literal and emotional can shape a life.
By the end, Kent stands once again in Iceland, two decades after her first arrival, attending the Reykjavík International Literary Festival. The circle is complete. What began as a teenage adventure has become a lifelong bond between writer and land, spirit and story.
Always Home, Always Homesick is a quietly dazzling work of introspection and gratitude. It reminds us that the places that once made us feel lost may, in time, become the places where we are most found.
