I first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland.

I still don't know why, exactly, but I do think people can have a spiritual connection to landscape, and I certainly did in Iceland.

I have a deep and ongoing love of Iceland, particular the landscape, and when writing 'Burial Rites,' I was constantly trying to see whether I could distill its extraordinary and ineffable qualities into a kind of poetry.

I applied for funding to embark on an overseas field trip in Iceland, and spent six weeks there happily holed up in the national archives, museums and libraries, sifting through ministerial and parish records, censuses, maps, microfilm, logs, and local histories.

In Iceland, you can see the contours of the mountains wherever you go, and the swell of the hills, and always beyond that the horizon. And there's this strange thing: you're never sort of hidden; you always feel exposed in that landscape. But it makes it very beautiful as well.

There are secrets at the heart of every story; there is something that must be uncovered or discovered, both by the reader and by the characters.