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Vale Hilary Mantel

British writer Hilary Mantel died last week, aged 70.

Best known for her ‘Wolf Hall’ historical fiction trilogy, Mantel won the Booker Prize twice, for Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, which also won the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The conclusion to the trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, was published in 2020 to critical acclaim, longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, which Mantel first won for Wolf Hall. To date, the trilogy has been translated into 41 languages with sales of over five million worldwide.

Mantel is the author of 17 books in total, including Every Day is Mother’s Day; Vacant Possession; Eight Months on Ghazzah Street; FluddA Place of Greater SafetyThe Giant, O’Brien; Beyond Black; Learning to Talk and The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

HarperCollins UK CEO Charlie Redmayne says:

‘This is terrible, tragic news and we are filled with sorrow for Hilary’s family and friends, especially her devoted husband Gerald. We are so proud that 4th Estate and HarperCollins were Hilary’s publisher, and for such a peerless body of work.

‘A writer to the core, Hilary was one of the greatest of her generation—a serious, fearless novelist with huge empathy for her subjects. Who else could have brought Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII and the huge cast of the ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy to life with such insight, frailty and humanity but her? We will all miss Hilary’s company, her wisdom, her humour, and treasure her incredible literary legacy—she will be read as long as people are still reading.’

Former 4th Estate publishing director and Mantel’s long-term editor Nicholas Pearson says:

‘The news of Hilary’s death is devastating to her friends and everyone who worked with her. Hilary had a unique outlook on the world—she picked it apart and revealed how it works in both her contemporary and historical novels—every book an unforgettable weave of luminous sentences, unforgettable characters and remarkable insight. She seemed to know everything.

‘For a long time she was critically admired, but the ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy found her the vast readership she long deserved. Read her late books, but read her early books too, which are similarly daring and take the reader to strange places.

‘As a person Hilary was kind and generous and loving, always a great champion of other writers. She was a joy to work with. Only last month I sat with her on a sunny afternoon in Devon, while she talked excitedly about the new novel she had embarked on. That we won’t have the pleasure of any more of her words is unbearable. What we do have is a body of work that will be read for generations. We must be grateful for that. I will miss her and my thoughts are with her husband Gerald.’

 

Category: Obituaries