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Author Mantel (1952-2022): Multi-award winning
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David Levenson/Getty Images
Award-winning British writer Hilary Mantel has died at the age of 70.
This was announced by her publisher on Friday via Twitter.
“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,” publisher 4th Estate Books wrote.
"This is a devastating loss and we can only be grateful that she left us such a magnificent body of work".
Only three people can claim to have won the Booker Prize, the most important British literary award, twice.
Alongside South African JM Coetzee and Australian Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel was one of them: first in 2009 for »Wolf Hall« and then in 2012 for the sequel »Bring Up the Bodies«.
The books are part of a trilogy about the English statesman Thomas Cromwell, which was published in German translation under the titles »Wolves«, »Falcons«, and »Spiegel und Licht«.
Hilary Mary Mantel was born in Glossop (Derbyshire) on 6 July 1952 and grew up in the neighboring village of Hadfield, the eldest of three children.
Her family roots were in Ireland - after Brexit she announced in 2021 that she wanted to take Irish citizenship.
Mantel attended Harrytown Convent School in Romiley, Cheshire.
1970-1973 she studied law at the London School of Economics and Sheffield University with a bachelor's degree.
She had to give up further studies due to lack of money.
As early as 1974 she began a historical novel about the French Revolution, for which she was initially unable to find a publisher.
Together with her husband she went to Botswana in 1977 as a social worker and accompanied him to Saudi Arabia in 1983, where he worked for four years in the oil industry in the port city of Jeddah.
It was there that she wrote her debut novel »Every Day is Mother's Day« (1985).
The social satire and its sequel were only published in German in 2016 (»Every day is Mother's Day« and »In full possession of your own madness«).
After her return from Saudi Arabia, she wrote film reviews for the weekly magazine »Spectator«, published her autobiography »Giving up the Ghost« (German 2015, »Von Geist und Geistern«) and several novels in 2003.
Highly praised by critics for years, Mantel was only moderately successful commercially until she achieved a sensational success in 2009 with »Wolf Hall«.
The book sold better than any previous Booker Prize-winning title.
It depicts the time when England broke away from the Catholic Church under King Henry VIII (1509-1547) from the perspective of Lord Chancellor and mastermind Thomas Cromwell.
From Mantel's point of view, the early Tudor dynasty, with its mixture of "sex, melodrama, betrayal, seduction and violent death," offered excellent novel material and, with Cromwell, an interesting and multifaceted personality.
The 2012 novel »Bring up the Bodies« follows the fate of Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII's six wives, who was executed at Cromwell's instigation.
In the third part, Mantel told about the last four years until Cromwell's execution.
Mantel never made a secret of her republican stance, even though the Tudor novels made her a quasi-monarchy expert.
Notwithstanding, Queen Elizabeth II bestowed
Due to her literary merits, Mantel was awarded the title of »Dame Commander« in the Order of Knights of the British Empire in 2014.
According to her publisher in Great Britain, the British news agency PA announced that the successful author died "suddenly but peacefully" surrounded by her family.
feb/dpa/Reuters
