Hilary Mantel
, successful British writer, fourth author and first woman to win the Booker Prize twice, in 2009 and 2012,
has died at the age of 70 : the UK's most prestigious literary award for English writers
in the world.
The news was confirmed on behalf of the family by her publisher.
To give it popularity was above all a
fictionalized t relogy on the figure of Thomas Cromwell, powerful minister of the infamous Henry VIII
.
She was also known as a polemicist.
Born on 6 July 1952 in Glossop, graduated in law from Sheffield and also lived in Botswana and Saudi Arabia, Mantel gained literary fame in the early 2000s, after making her debut as a critic.
To give her popularity was above all a fictionalized trilogy on the figure of Thomas Cromwell, powerful minister of the infamous Henry VIII who after the Anglican schism was at the forefront in the persecution of Catholics and in pushing the Church of England towards a reform of the Protestant model, before to fall out of favor in turn and be executed.
Trilogy started with the novel 'Wolf Hall' (Booker in 2009), continued with a sequel entitled in Italian 'Anna Bolena, a matter of family' (Booker in 2012), and concluded in 2020 with 'The mirror and the light': titles all published in Italy by Fazi.
Also committed to political and social issues,
Mantel has not escaped controversy over the years
, including against the royal family despite the knighthood and the title of dame received and accepted by the queen.
Like when she targeted Kate, Prince William's wife, as an artificial model;
her when she declared after Brexit that she wanted to move to Ireland (which later did not happen);
when she said she dreamed of writing the story of a fictional Margaret Thatcher killing;
or when she was accused of propagating old anti-Catholic prejudices in the Kingdom, even though she herself was raised Catholic in a family of partly Irish origins.
(HANDLE).
