The best-selling author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, Dame Hilary Mantel, passed away at the age of 70, according to her publisher.
For the 2009 novel Wolf Hall, the first in the Thomas Cromwell series, and the 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies, she was awarded the Booker Prize twice.
Her trilogy’s conclusion, The Mirror, and the Light, was released in 2020 to a lot of critical praise, became a best-seller in fiction, and was nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize.
Thomas Cromwell’s rise to prominence in the court of Henry VIII was the subject of the novel Wolf Hall.
Dame Hilary claimed in an interview with The Guardian that it took years of research to make sure the books accurately depicted historical events.
The author claimed that her goal was to immerse the reader in “that time and that place, putting you among Henry’s entourage.”
The key is not to pass judgment from the elevated vantage point of the 21st Century while we are aware of what transpired, she added.
It’s to be there with them in that hunting party at Wolf Hall, going forward despite incomplete knowledge and possibly incorrect expectations, but moving forward into an unpredicted future where chance and hazard will play a significant role.
The first woman to win the Booker Prize twice was Dame Hilary.
