Dame Hilary Mantel, author of the bestselling historical novel from the Wolf Hall trilogy has died, aged 70. The news was announced by her publisher just a short while ago.
Mantel is one of the most succesful British authors of our time and won the Booker Prize twice, once in 2009 for her novel Wolf Hall, and again in 2012 for the next novel in the Cromwell Series, Bring up the Bodies.
A statement released by her publisher today stated “We are heartbroken at the death of our beloved author, Dame Hilary Mantel.Our thoughts are with her friends and family, especially her husband, Gerald.This is a devastating loss and we can only be grateful she left us with such a magnificent body of work.”
What seemingly is now her final novel and the final book in the trlogy, The Mirror and the Light, was published in 2020 to much critical acclaim. It became an instant bestseller and was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.
The trilogy is a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power within the court of Henry VIII and is considered to be one of the best historical novels of the 21st century. It’s yet to be seen if there are any unpublished works that we may see later on, but for now the loss of Hilary Mantel is likely to be felt keenly across the literary world.
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