Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent review – absorbing memoir brings Iceland to life

The first part of Hannah Kent’s memoir Always Home, Always Homesick spans the award-winning author’s early childhood in Adelaide through to her first trip to Iceland as a 17-year-old Rotary exchange student, in 2003. Inseparable from Kent’s enchantment with Iceland is her own artistic blossoming, making this first section of the memoir read like a Künstlerroman. As with Agnes’ voice in Burial Rites, Kent’s narration here is immediate, intimate and never less than captivating. There is a decidedly Romantic bent to Kent’s writing – a lyrical treatment of nature; frequent reference to the liminal. On her most recent trip to Iceland, captured in the third and final part of the memoir, Kent visits the site of Agnes’ execution, which has been made into a memorial.