Hilary Mantel

Dame Hilary Mary Mantel, DBE, FRSL (/mænˈtɛl/ man-TEL;[2] née Thompson; born 6 July 1952) is an English writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories.[3]

Dame

Hilary Mantel

DBE FRSL
BornHilary Mary Thompson
(1952-07-06) 6 July 1952
Glossop, Derbyshire, England
OccupationNovelist, short story writer, essayist and critic
Alma materUniversity of Sheffield
London School of Economics
Notable awardsBooker Prize
2009, 2012
Walter Scott Prize
2010
Costa Novel Prize
2012
SpouseGerald McEwen (m. 1972)
Website
hilary-mantel.com

She has twice been awarded the Booker Prize, the first time for the 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII, and secondly for the 2012 novel Bring Up the Bodies, the second instalment of the Cromwell trilogy. Mantel was the first woman to receive the award twice, following in the footsteps of J. M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and J. G. Farrell (who posthumously won the Lost Man Booker Prize).[4][5] The third instalment of the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, was released on 5 March 2020 in the UK and the following July was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.[6]

Early life

Hilary Mary Thompson was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, the eldest of three children, and raised as a Catholic[7] in the mill village of Hadfield where she attended St Charles Roman Catholic primary school. Her parents, Margaret (née Foster) and Henry Thompson, were both of Irish descent but born in England.[8] Her parents separated and she did not see her father after the age of eleven. The family, without her father but with Jack Mantel (1932–1995)[9] who by now had moved in with them, relocated to Romiley, Cheshire, and Jack became her unofficial stepfather.[10] At this point she took her de facto stepfather's surname legally.

She explored her family background, the mainspring of much of her fiction, in her 2003 memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. Although she lost her religious faith at age 12, she says it left a permanent mark on her:

[the] real cliché, the sense of guilt. You grow up believing that you're wrong and bad. And for me, because I took what I was told really seriously, it bred a very intense habit of introspection and self-examination and a terrible severity with myself. So that nothing was ever good enough. It's like installing a policeman, and one moreover who keeps changing the law.[11]

She attended Harrytown Convent school in Romiley, Cheshire. In 1970, she began her studies at the London School of Economics to read law.[3] She transferred to the University of Sheffield and graduated as Bachelor of Jurisprudence in 1973. During her university years, she was a socialist.[8]

Early career

After university, Mantel worked in the social work department of a geriatric hospital and then as a sales assistant in a department store.

In 1972, she married Gerald McEwen, a geologist. In 1974, she began writing a novel about the French Revolution, which was subsequently (in 1992) published as A Place of Greater Safety. In 1977, Mantel moved to Botswana with her husband where they lived for the next five years.[12] Later, they spent four years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She published a memoir of this period in the London Review of Books. She later said that leaving Jeddah felt like "the happiest day of [her] life".[13]

McEwen gave up geology to manage his wife's business.[14] They divorced, but remarried after a couple of years.[15]

Literary career

Her first novel, Every Day is Mother's Day, was published in 1985, and its sequel, Vacant Possession, a year later. After returning to England, she became the film critic of The Spectator, a position she held from 1987 to 1991,[16] and a reviewer for a number of papers and magazines in Britain and the United States. Her novel Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (1988), which drew on her life in Saudi Arabia, uses a threatening clash of values between the neighbours in a city apartment block to explore the tensions between Islamic culture and the liberal West. Her Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize-winning novel Fludd is set in 1956 in a fictitious northern village called Fetherhoughton, centring on a Roman Catholic church and a convent. A mysterious stranger brings about transformations in the lives of those around him.

A Place of Greater Safety (1992) won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award, for which her two previous books had been shortlisted. A long and historically accurate novel, it traces the career of three French revolutionaries, Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, from childhood to their early deaths during the Reign of Terror of 1794.

A Change of Climate (1994), set in rural Norfolk, explores the lives of Ralph and Anna Eldred, as they raise their four children and devote their lives to charity. It includes chapters about their early married life as missionaries in South Africa, when they were imprisoned and deported to Bechuanaland, and the tragedy that occurred there.

An Experiment in Love (1996), which won the Hawthornden Prize, takes place over two university terms in 1970. It follows the progress of three girls – two friends and one enemy – as they leave home and attend university in London. Margaret Thatcher makes a cameo appearance in this novel, which explores women's appetites and ambitions, and suggests how they are often thwarted. Though Mantel has used material from her own life, it is not an autobiographical novel.

Her next book, The Giant, O'Brien (1998), is set in the 1780s, and is based on the true story of Charles Byrne (or O'Brien). He came to London to earn money by displaying himself as a freak. His bones hang today in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The novel treats O'Brien and his antagonist, the Scots surgeon John Hunter, less as characters in history than as mythic protagonists in a dark and violent fairytale, necessary casualties of the Age of Enlightenment. She adapted the book for BBC Radio 4, in a play starring Alex Norton (as Hunter) and Frances Tomelty.

In 2003, Mantel published her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, which won the MIND "Book of the Year" award. That same year she brought out a collection of short stories, Learning To Talk. All the stories deal with childhood and, taken together, the books show how the events of a life are mediated as fiction. Her 2005 novel, Beyond Black, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it features a professional medium, Alison Hart, whose calm and jolly exterior conceals grotesque psychic damage. She trails around with her a troupe of "fiends", who are invisible but always on the verge of becoming flesh.

The long novel Wolf Hall, about Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell, was published in 2009 to critical acclaim.[17] The book won that year's Booker Prize and, upon winning the award, Mantel said, "I can tell you at this moment I am happily flying through the air".[18] Judges voted three to two in favour of Wolf Hall for the prize. Mantel was presented with a trophy and a £50,000 cash prize during an evening ceremony at the London Guildhall.[19][20] The panel of judges, led by the broadcaster James Naughtie, described Wolf Hall as an "extraordinary piece of storytelling".[21] Leading up to the award, the book was backed as the favourite by bookmakers and accounted for 45% of the sales of all the nominated books.[19] It was the first favourite since 2002 to win the award.[5] On receiving the prize, Mantel said that she would spend the prize money on "sex and drugs and rock' n' roll".[22]

The sequel to Wolf Hall, called Bring Up the Bodies, was published in May 2012 to wide acclaim. It won the 2012 Costa Book of the Year and the 2012 Booker Prize; Mantel thus became the first British writer and the first woman to win the Booker Prize more than once.[23][24] This award also made Mantel the first author to win the award for a sequel.[25] The books were adapted into plays by the Royal Shakespeare Company and were produced as a mini-series by BBC.[25] In 2020 Mantel published the third novel of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, called The Mirror and the Light.[26][27] The Mirror and the Light was selected for the longlist for the 2020 Booker Prize.[28]

She is also working on a short non-fiction book, titled The Woman Who Died of Robespierre, about the Polish playwright Stanisława Przybyszewska. Mantel also writes reviews and essays, mainly for The Guardian,[29] the London Review of Books[30] and the New York Review of Books.[31] The Culture Show programme on BBC Two broadcast a profile of Mantel on 17 September 2011.[32]

In December 2016, Mantel spoke with Kenyon Review editor David H. Lynn on the KR Podcast[33] about the way historical novels are published, what it is like to live in the world of one character for more than ten years, writing for the stage, and the final book in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror and the Light.[33]

She delivered the 2017 Reith Lectures on BBC Radio Four, talking about the theme of historical fiction. Her final one of these lectures was on the theme of adaptation of historical novels for stage or screen.[34] Mantel's lectures were selected by its producer, Jim Frank, as amongst the best of the long-running series.[35]

Health

During her twenties, Mantel had a debilitating and painful illness. She was initially diagnosed with a psychiatric illness, hospitalised, and treated with antipsychotic drugs, which reportedly produced psychotic symptoms. In consequence, Mantel refrained from seeking help from doctors for some years. Finally, in Botswana and desperate, she consulted a medical textbook and realised she was probably suffering from a severe form of endometriosis, a diagnosis confirmed by doctors in London. The condition and necessary surgery—a surgical menopause at the age of 27—left her unable to have children, and continued to disrupt her life. She later said "you've thought your way through questions of fertility and menopause and what it means to be without children because it all happened catastrophically". This led Mantel in her writing to see the woman's body problematised as a theme, though a shadow rather than what she wrote about constantly.[36] Continued treatment by steroids caused weight gain and radically changed her appearance.

She was patron of, and is a supporter of, the Endometriosis SHE Trust.[37]

Controversies

Commentary on media portrayal of royalty

In a 2013 speech on media and royal women at the British Museum, Mantel commented on Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, saying in passing that the Duchess was forced to present herself publicly as a personality-free "shop window mannequin" whose sole purpose is to deliver an heir to the throne.[38][39][40] Mantel also said: "It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn't mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty."[39]

These remarks caused much controversy. The Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband and Prime Minister David Cameron criticised them, while Jemima Khan[41][42] defended Mantel.

Thatcher controversy

In September 2014, in an interview published in The Guardian, Mantel confessed to fantasizing about the murder of Margaret Thatcher in 1983, and fictionalized the event in a short story called "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: 6 August 1983". In the interview she expands on her hatred for the former British prime minister. Allies of Thatcher called for a police investigation, to which Mantel sarcastically responded, "bringing in the police for an investigation was beyond anything I could have planned or hoped for, because it immediately exposes them to ridicule."[43]

Allegations of anti-Catholicism

In an interview with the Telegraph, Mantel stated: "I think that nowadays the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people."[7] She continued in the interview to say: "When I was a child I wondered why priests and nuns were not nicer people. I thought that they were amongst the worst people I knew." These statements, as well as the themes explored in her earlier novel Fludd, have led some to question her work in Wolf Hall, with Bishop Mark O'Toole noting: "There is an anti-Catholic thread there, there is no doubt about it. Wolf Hall is not neutral."[44]

Awards and honours

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2006 Birthday Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to literature.[62]

List of works

Novels
  • Every Day is Mother's Day series:
    1. Every Day is Mother's Day: Chatto & Windus, 1985
    2. Vacant Possession: Chatto & Windus, 1986
  • Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: Viking Press, 1988
  • Fludd: Viking Press, 1989
  • A Place of Greater Safety: Viking Press, 1992
  • A Change of Climate: Viking Press, 1994
  • An Experiment in Love: Viking Press, 1995
  • The Giant, O'Brien: Fourth Estate, 1998
  • Beyond Black: Fourth Estate, 2005
  • Thomas Cromwell series:
    1. Wolf Hall: Fourth Estate, 2009[63]
    2. Bring Up the Bodies: Fourth Estate, 2012[64]
    3. The Mirror and the Light: Fourth Estate, 5 March 2020. ISBN 978-0007480999

Short story collections
  • Learning to Talk (Fourth Estate, 2003)
    • "King Billy Is a Gentleman"
    • "Destroyed"
    • "Curved is the Line of Beauty"
    • "Learning to Talk"
    • "Third Floor Rising"
    • "The Clean Slate"
  • The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher (Fourth Estate, 2014)[65][66]
    • "Sorry to Disturb"
    • "Comma"
    • "Winter Break"
    • "Harley Street"
    • "Offences Against the Person"
    • "How Shall I Know You?"
    • "The Heart Fails Without Warning"
    • "Terminus"
    • "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher"

Memoir

Articles

Personal life

Mantel is married to the retired geologist Gerald McEwen. They live in Budleigh Salterton, Devon.[25]

References
  1. "Hilary Mantel – Bring Up the Bodies". Bookclub. 6 October 2013. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. Sangster, Catherine (14 September 2009). "How to Say: JM Coetzee and other Booker authors". BBC News. Retrieved 1 October 2009.
  3. "Literature: Writers: Hilary Mantel". British Council. 2011. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
  4. Clark, Nick (11 September 2012). "Booker Prize 2012: Hilary Mantel could become first British writer to win the literary prize twice after Bring up the Bodies makes shortlist". The Independent. London. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  5. Pressley, James and Anderson, Hephzibah (6 October 2009). "Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' Wins U.K. Booker Prize, 50,000 Pounds". Bloomberg. Retrieved 14 May 2012.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  6. "The 2020 Booker Prize longlist announced". The Booker Prizes. 27 July 2020. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  7. Singh, Anita (13 May 2012). "Hilary Mantel: Catholic Church is not for respectable people". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  8. MacFarquhar, Larissa (15 October 2012). "How Hilary Mantel Revitalized Historical Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  9. Mantel, Hilary (17 April 2010). "Hilary Mantel remembers her stepfather's books". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  10. Murphy, Anna (1 March 2010). "Hilary Mantel Interview". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  11. Edemariam, Aida (12 September 2009). "I accumulated an anger that would rip a roof off". The Guardian. London.
  12. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 28 November 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2014.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. Mantel, Hilary (21 February 2010). "Once upon a life". The Observer Magazine. London.
  14. Renzetti, Elizabeth (18 June 2012). "Inverview Mantel: She writes about Cromwell, but Henry VIII is the key". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  15. Jane Cornwell, "Hearths of Darkness", Weekend Australian, 17–18 April 2004, p. R7
  16. "Hilary Mantel - Literature". Archived from the original on 12 February 2015. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  17. Flood, Alison (8 September 2009). "Booker Prize prize shortlist pits veteran Coetzee against bookies' favourite Mantel". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  18. "Mantel named Booker Prize winner". BBC News. 6 October 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  19. Brown, Mark (6 October 2009). "Booker prize goes to Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  20. Mukherjee, Neel (6 October 2009). "The Booker got it right: Mantel's Cromwell is a book for all seasons". The Times. London. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
  21. Hoyle, Ben (6 October 2009). "Booker Prize won by Hilary Mantels tale of historical intrigue". The Times. London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  22. Voigt, Claudia (14 January 2013). "Der schwarze Kern". Der Spiegel (in German). pp. 132–134.
  23. "Hilary Mantel First Woman To Win Booker Prize Twice".
  24. "Hilary Mantel's Heart of Stone". Slate. 4 May 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  25. Alter, Alexandra (24 February 2020). "For Hilary Mantel, There's No Time Like the Past". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  26. "Hilary Mantel reveals plans for Wolf Hall trilogy". BBC News. 18 November 2011. Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  27. "Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Costa novel prize". BBC News. 2 January 2013. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  28. "Booker Prize 2020: Hilary Mantel makes longlist". BBC News. 28 July 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  29. "Hilary Mantel | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  30. "Hilary Mantel · LRB". www.lrb.co.uk. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  31. "Hilary Mantel". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  32. "Hilary Mantel: A Culture Show Special". BBC Two. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  33. "KR Podcast with Hilary Mantel", Kenyon Review.
  34. Mantel, Hilary (15 July 2017). "Adaptation". BBC Online. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  35. Frank, Jim. "Ten of the best Reith Lectures". BBC Online]]. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  36. "Hilary Mantel: 'Being a novelist is no fun. But fun isn't high on my list'". The Guardian. 4 October 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  37. Mantel, Hilary (7 June 2004). "'Every part of my body hurt' – Hilary Mantel on a little understood disease: endometriosis". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  38. Sherwin, Adam. "Hilary Mantel attacks 'bland, plastic, machine-made' Duchess of Cambridge", The Independent, 19 February 2013; retrieved 19 February 2013.
  39. Mantel, Hilary. "Royal Bodies", London Review of Books, 35:4, 21 February 2013, p.3-7
  40. "They also took up a total of four paragraphs in a 30-paragraph speech – less than one-seventh, in other words" according to Hadley Freeman "Hilary Mantel v the Duchess of Cambridge: a story of lazy journalism and raging hypocrisy", The Guardian, 19 February 2013.
  41. Sherwin, Adam. "David Cameron defends Kate over Hilary Mantel’s ‘shop-window mannequin’ remarks", The Independent, 19 February 2013.
  42. See also Jessica Elgot "Hilary Mantel And 10 Reasons Why She Might Be Right About Kate Middleton", The Huffington Post, 19 February 2013.
  43. Sherwin, Adam (13 November 2014). "Hilary Mantel: Coalition government more brutal to poor and immigrants than Thomas Cromwell was". The Independent. London.
  44. "Concern over anti catholic bias in BBC's Wolf Hall - Catholicireland.net". 6 February 2015.
  45. "Hallam's Class of 2009" (PDF). Newview. Sheffield Hallam University: 14. Winter 2009.
  46. "Honorary graduates 2011–12". University of Exeter. 17 July 2011. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  47. Flood, Alison (5 December 2012). "EL James comes out on top at National Book awards". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  48. Staff writer (2 January 2013). "Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Costa novel prize". BBC News. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  49. McCrum, Robert (29 January 2013). "Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies: a middlebrow triumph". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  50. Rahim, Sameer (29 January 2013). "Costa Book Award: who would dare refuse Hilary Mantel her crown?". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  51. Staff writer (30 January 2013). "Hilary Mantel wins Costa Book Award". BBC News. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  52. Flood, =Alison (7 March 2013). "Hilary Mantel adds David Cohen award to Booker and Costa prizes". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  53. "South Bank Sky Arts Awards – Winners 2013". West End Theatre. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  54. "Congregation of the Regent House for Honorary Degrees on Tuesday, 18 June 2013: Notice". Cambridge University Reporter. 22 April 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  55. "Celebrated Author Hilary Mantel To Be Honoured By University of Derby". University of Derby. 10 December 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  56. "Leading figures from UK arts and education awarded honorary degrees by Bath Spa University". Bath Spa University. 12 July 2013. Archived from the original on 6 February 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  57. "Oxford announces honorary degrees for 2015". University of Oxford. 19 February 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  58. "Inspirational Honorary Graduates announced". Oxford Brookes University. 3 June 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  59. "British Academy announces 2016 prizes and medal winners". The British Academy. 27 September 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  60. "Hilary Mantel", Kenyon Review.
  61. "Kenyon Review for Literary Achievement". KenyonReview.org.
  62. "No. 60895". The London Gazette (Supplement). 14 June 2014. p. b8.
  63. Benfey, Christopher (29 October 2009). "Sunday Book Review of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel". The New York Times.
  64. McGrath, Charles (25 May 2012). "Sunday Book Review of Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel". The New York Times.
  65. "The Style Blog". The Washington Post.
  66. Castle, Terry (2 October 2014). "Sunday Book Review of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories by Hilary Mantel". The New York Times.
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