Wolf Hall Author Hilary Mantel Dies At 70: The British novelist Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice and is best known for her works “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” has passed away. She was 70.
Her publishers, 4th Estate Books and HarperCollins U.K. reported her passing on a local Friday afternoon. It is thought to have been abrupt. Dame Hilary Mantel passed away, and 4th Estate Books and HarperCollins shared the same message on social media.
We are heartbroken by her passing, and our sympathies are with her friends and family, especially her husband, Gerald. We can only be thankful that she left behind such a beautiful piece of work in light of her tragic passing. Mantel is one of the most well-known writers in the U.K.
Her seminal Tudor drama “Wolf Hall,” which was made into an award-winning BBC drama, directed by Peter Kosminsky and starred Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, as well as its follow-up “Bring Up the Bodies,” both of which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, helped her gain international acclaim in the last 15 years, even though she wrote more than a dozen books.
Mantel is the first British novelist and woman to have received two Booker prizes. According to HarperCollins U.K., Mantel is the only author to have taken home the award for two straight novels.
Although Mantel was active recently and even took part in a “Questionnaire” interview with the London Financial Times, published on September 10, no cause of death has yet been disclosed. The author joked that Toryism was other people’s “most aggravating” quality.
Mantel, who has had endometriosis for a long time, responded to a query about her fitness by saying, “When I was tiny, an unpleasant doctor called me Little Miss Never well. I am Great Dame Neverwell at this time. My fluctuating health is a constant cause of stress. But I’m always trying to get better.”
Mantel was schooled at a convent school in Cheshire after being born in northern Derbyshire in 1952. She went to Sheffield University and the London School of Economics, where she majored in law.
After graduating from college, Mantel worked as a social worker at a nursing home for the elderly. These experiences were the basis for her novels “Every Day is Mother’s Day” and “Vacant Possession.”
Mantel and her husband Gerald McEwen moved to Saudi Arabia in 1982 after moving to Botswana in 1977. “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street,” the third book by the author, is set in Jeddah.
In 1986, Mantel made her way back to the U.K., where she briefly worked as a critic for the Spectator. She won several U.K. awards for her book “Fludd,” and the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award went to her fifth book, “A Place of Greater Safety.”
However, Mantel became famous after “Wolf Hall,” which took up the 2009 Man Booker Prize. The book is a fictitious biography of Thomas Cromwell and his ascent to power in Henry VIII’s court, and it is based on an intensive, years-long study into the Tudor era by Mantel.
Rylance played Cromwell and Lewis played Henry VIII in the 2015 BBC drama. The BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated program aired in the United States on PBS’s “Masterpiece,” gave “The Crown” star Claire Foy her breakthrough role as Anne Boleyn.
The follow-up to “Wolf Hall,” “Bring Up the Bodies,” won the 2012 Man Booker Prize, while the author’s most recent work and trilogy’s conclusion, “The Mirror and the Light,” was on the Man Booker longlist.
Wolf Hall author Dame Hilary Mantel dies ‘suddenly’ aged 70
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In 2006, Mantel was named a Commander of the British Empire. In 2014, she received the title of dame. Her spouse of more than 50 years, McEwen, is still alive. The couple wed in 1972, went through a lengthy divorce, and then got back together.
