Hilary Mantell, the British author of Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and Mirror and Light, a trilogy based on the life of Thomas Cromwell, died Thursday in a hospital in Exeter, England. rice field. she was 70 years old.
Her death Monday, days after suffering a stroke, was confirmed by her longtime literary agent, Bill Hamilton. rice field. “It’s a big loss for literature,” he added.
The author of 17 books, Mantell was one of Britain’s most brilliant novelists. She has won the Booker Prize, the country’s prestigious literary award, twice for “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” both of which have sold millions of copies. He was also selected as a finalist for the same award for Mirror and Light.
In his 2020 review of “Mirror and Light,” former New York Times book critic Parul Segar wrote that Mantell’s writing “places readers in a sweeping narrative full of conquest, intrigue, and madness.” Envelop it in,” he writes. Mr. Mantell was more than just a writer of historical fiction, Mr. Segal said, he was an expert in demonstrating “the power that reveals and hides the human character.”
Ms Mantell was born Hilary Mary Thompson on 6 July 1952 in the Derbyshire village of Glossop to Henry and Margaret Thompson and grew up in a busy Irish Catholic household. Her mother, Margaret, was her school secretary. Ms. Mantell took her stepfather’s last name after her mother left her husband and moved her family with engineer Jack Mantell.
It was a tough childhood. “I was unfit to be a child,” she wrote in her memoir. Her doctor called her “Little Miss Her Neverwell” because her Ms. Mantell had health problems with her. She was the first of many doctors to fail to treat Ms. Mantell properly.
At 18, she moved to London to study law at the London School of Economics, but could not afford to complete her training. After she married geologist Gerald McEwen, she became a teacher and began her writing beside her.
In her 20s, she discovered she was suffering from endometriosis. Around that time, her doctor ordered her to stop writing. Her reaction, documented in her memoirs, was typically blunt.
When she was 27 years old when her diagnosis of endometriosis was confirmed, she underwent surgery to remove her uterus and ovaries, but the pain continued. Complications from her illness, she said, have made it impossible for her to do her normal day job.
“It narrowed down my life options,” she said.
The couple ended up living in Botswana and Saudi Arabia, an experience Mantell later incorporated into his novel Eight Months on Gaza Street. About an Englishwoman living in Jeddah.
In 1979, she completed her first novel, A Place of Greater Safety, set during the French Revolution. It was initially rejected by the publisher. However, her second book, her contemporary novel published in 1985, was a huge success, and over the following decades she gained a cult following.
But Mantell continued to enjoy mainstream success until 2009 with Wolf Hall, the first book in her trilogy about Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son who became one of Henry VIII’s most trusted assistants. did not achieve. The novel began with a shocking scene. Teenage Cromwell lies in a pool of his own vomit after being beaten by his father. Soon, Cromwell decides to make another life for herself and begins her way to power.
Janet Maslin, in her review for The New York Times, called it “a vaulting, elegantly detailed biopic”.
“Her book protagonists are very well represented,” added Maslin. “And their sharp-clawed intrigue is presented with non-stop vigor in a book capable of compressing an abundance of sharpness into very few well-chosen words.”
In a 2020 New York Times interview, Mantell said he was fascinated by Cromwell after learning about his role in the dismantling of British monasteries in high school. But when she read the novel about him, she saw him presented as a disgusting stereotype. “I realized this guy needed some imaginative work,” she said.
Cromwell became the dominant figure in her trilogy, losing the king’s favor and head after he transformed himself into one of Britain’s most powerful figures. “Considering how long Thomas Cromwell has been in my consciousness, I am not going to meet another Thomas Cromwell,” he said.
Mr. Mantell did more than just remind readers of Cromwell’s life in his novel. She also helped put him on stage in a series of award-winning plays and his BBC TV series.she co-wrote stage adaptation Of the last book in the trilogy “Mirror and Light” with the actor Ben Miles, who played Cromwell.
The trilogy has been translated into 41 languages, sold over five million copies worldwide, and helped restore Cromwell’s image by showcasing him as a brilliant and innovative strategist. ‘Hillary reset historical patterns,’ says Oxford theology professor Biography of Cromwelltold The Times in 2020.
Even after her rise to fame, Ms. Mantell never became a regular fixture on the London literary scene. She lived a quiet life in the Devon coastal village of Baddeley Her Salterton. She and her husband mostly hogged and devoted themselves to her writing.
She could be witty and iconoclastic in her views, and was not afraid to stir up controversy with her irreverent attitude towards British politics and royalty. was attacked by the tabloids for lecture When comparing Kate Middleton at the British Museum in 2013, The Duchess of Cambridge as a characterless ‘mannequin in a shop window’. She drew the ire of conservative British politicians with a short story she wrote imagining a plot to assassinate Margaret Thatcher.
Yet, despite her glitz and skepticism about the political system, she remains a national icon, and in 2015, Prince Charles bestowed Ms. Mantell with the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Hamilton said Mantell was left by her husband, McEwen. She had no children with the couple. Hamilton said she also has her younger brother.
After completing Cromwell’s trilogy, Mantell felt he did not have the stamina to undertake another major historical fiction project, and instead planned to concentrate on a new medium, theatre.
Her agent, Hamilton, said Mantell was working on at least one play and had various works in various stages of completion, but “has no novels or non-fiction books to publish.” .
“Things left imperfect are very unlikely to see the light of day,” he said.
In one of her last interviews, Released on September 10, Ms. Mantell was asked if she believed in the afterlife. She told The Times of Financial, but she couldn’t imagine how it would work.”But the universe isn’t limited to what I can imagine,” she said. rice field.