Hilary Mantel

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Hilary Mantel
BornHilary Mary Thompson
(1952-07-06) 6 July 1952 (age 71)
Glossop, Derbyshire, England, UK
OccupationNovelist, short story writer, essayist and critic
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Sheffield
Notable worksWolf Hall,
Bring Up the Bodies
Notable awardsMan Booker Prize
2009, 2012
Walter Scott Prize
2010
Costa Novel Prize
2012

Hilary Mary Mantel, CBE, (/mænˈtɛl/ man-TEL;[1] born 6 July 1952, née Thompson) is an English writer whose work ranges in subject from personal memoir and short story to historical fiction and essay.[2] She has twice been awarded the Booker Prize.

She won her first Booker Prize for the 2009 novel, Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII. She won her second Booker Prize for the 2012 novel, Bring Up the Bodies, the second instalment of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy. This made her 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).[3][4] The Mirror and the Light is the title of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy's final installment.

Early life

Hilary Mary Thompson was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, the eldest of three children, and was brought up in the mill village of Hadfield, attending St Charles local Roman Catholic primary school. Her parents, Margaret and Henry Thompson, both of Irish descent, were also born in England.[5] Her parents separated and she did not see her father after age eleven. The family minus her father, but with Jack Mantel (1932-1995)[6] who by now had moved in with them, relocated to Romiley, Cheshire, and Jack became her unofficial stepfather.[7] She took her de-facto stepfather's surname legally. She has explored her family background, the mainspring of much of her fiction, in her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost (2003). She lost her religious faith at age 12 and says that this left a permanent mark on her:

the "real cliche, 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."[8]

She attended Harrytown Convent in Romiley, Cheshire. In 1970 she began her studies at the London School of Economics to read law.[2] She transferred to the University of Sheffield and graduated as Bachelor of Jurisprudence in 1973. During her university years, she was a socialist.[5]

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 later published as A Place of Greater Safety. In 1977 Mantel went to live in Botswana with her husband. Later they spent four years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She published a memoir of this time, Someone to Disturb, in the London Review of Books. She later said that leaving Jeddah felt like "the happiest day of my life".[9]

Her husband Gerald McEwen gave up geology to manage his wife's business affairs.[10]

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 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 first-hand experience in Saudi Arabia, uses a threatening clash of values between the neighbours in a city apartment block to explore the tensions between Islamist culture and the liberal West. Her Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize-winning novel Fludd is set in 1956 in a fictitious northern village called Fetherhoughton, centering 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 O'Brien or Byrne. 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.[citation needed]

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 years around the second millennium, 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. [citation needed]

The long novel Wolf Hall, about Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell, was published in 2009 to critical acclaim.[11] The book won that year's Man Booker Prize and, upon winning the award, Mantel said, "I can tell you at this moment I am happily flying through the air."[12] 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.[13][14] The panel of judges, led by the broadcaster James Naughtie, described Wolf Hall as an "extraordinary piece of storytelling".[15] 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.[13] It was the first favourite since 2002 to win the award.[4] On receiving the prize, Mantel noted that she would spend the prize money on "sex and drugs and rock' n' roll", light-heartedly expressing that she would enjoy her sudden success as much as possible, after a previously much more modest career.[16]

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 Man Booker Prize.[17] Mantel is working on the third novel of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, called The Mirror and the Light.[18][19]

She is also working on a short non-fiction book called The Woman Who Died of Robespierre, about the Polish playwright Stanisława Przybyszewska. Mantel also writes reviews and essays, mainly for The Guardian, the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. The Culture Show programme on BBC Two broadcast a profile of Mantel on 17 September 2011.[20]

Health

During her twenties, Mantel suffered from a debilitating and painful illness. She was initially diagnosed with a psychiatric illness, hospitalised, and treated with antipsychotic drugs. These drugs paradoxically produced psychotic symptoms, and as a 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 left her unable to have children and continued to disrupt her life. Continued treatment by steroids caused weight gain and radically changed her appearance. She was patron of the Endometriosis SHE Trust.

Commentary on media portrayal of royalty

In the context of her novels on Royal consorts in Tudor times, in a speech on media and royal women at the British Museum, Mantel commented on Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.[21] Her comments in passing[22] that the Duchess is forced to present herself publicly as a personality-free “shop window mannequin”, whose sole purpose is to deliver an heir to the throne[23] received much negative comment. The Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband defended the Duchess labelling the comments as 'offensive'. Prime Minister David Cameron defended the Duchess, whom he referred to as 'Princess Kate', from what the British tabloids saw as an attack, while Jemima Khan [24][25] and Hadley Freeman[26] defended Mantel from criticism. Near the end of her speech, Mantel 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."[21]

Awards and honours

List of works

Novels

Short stories

  • Learning to Talk: Fourth Estate, 2003

Memoir

  • Giving Up the Ghost: Fourth Estate, 2003

Articles

References

  1. ^ Sangster, Catherine (14 September 2009). "How to Say: JM Coetzee and other Booker authors". BBC News. Retrieved 1 October 2009.
  2. ^ a b "Literature: Writers: Hilary Mantel". The British Council. 2011. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
  3. ^ 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 - News - Books". The Independent. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  4. ^ a b "Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' Wins U.K. Man Booker, 50,000 Pounds". Bloomberg. 6 October 2009. Retrieved 14 May 2012. {{cite news}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
  5. ^ a b Larissa MacFarquhar (15 October 2012). "How Hilary Mantel Revitalized Historical Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 October 2012. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ Hilary Mantel. "Hilary Mantel remembers her stepfather's books | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  7. ^ Murphy, Anna (1 March 2010). "Hilary Mantel Interview". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 January 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ Edemariam, Aida (12 September 2009). "I accumulated an anger that would rip a roof off". The Guardian. London. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help); More than one of |location= and |place= specified (help)
  9. ^ "Once upon a life", The Observer Magazine, 21 February 2010
  10. ^ 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. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  11. ^ Flood, Alison (8 September 2009). "Man Booker prize shortlist pits veteran Coetzee against bookies' favourite Mantel". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  12. ^ "Mantel named Booker Prize winner". BBC News. 6 October 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  13. ^ a b Brown, Mark (6 October 2009). "Booker prize goes to Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ Hoyle, Ben (6 October 2009). "Man Booker Prize won by Hilary Mantels tale of historical intrigue". The Times. London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  16. ^ Voigt, Claudia (14 January 2013). "Der schwarze Kern". Der Spiegel (in German). pp. 132–134. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  17. ^ "Hilary Mantel's Heart of Stone". Slate. 4 May 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  18. ^ "Hilary Mantel reveals plans for Wolf Hall trilogy". BBC News. 18 November 2011. Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  19. ^ "Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Costa novel prize". BBC News. 2 January 2013. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  20. ^ "Hilary Mantel: A Culture Show Special". BBC Two. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  21. ^ a b Mantel, Hilary. "Royal Bodies", London Review of Books, 35:4, 21 February 2013, p.3-7
  22. ^ "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.
  23. ^ Sherwin, Adam. "Hilary Mantel attacks 'bland, plastic, machine-made' Duchess of Cambridge", The Independent, 19 February 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
  24. ^ Sherwin, Adam. "David Cameron defends Kate over Hilary Mantel’s ‘shop-window mannequin’ remarks", The Independent, 19 February 2013.
  25. ^ See also Jessica Elgot "Hilary Mantel And 10 Reasons Why She Might Be Right About Kate Middleton", The Huffington Post, 19 February 2013.
  26. ^ "Hilary Mantel v the Duchess of Cambridge: a story of lazy journalism and raging hypocrisy", The Guardian, 19 February 2013.
  27. ^ Alison Flood (5 December 2012). "EL James comes out on top at National Book awards". The Guardian. Retrieved December 05, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  28. ^ Staff writer (2 January 2013). "Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Costa novel prize". BBC News. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  29. ^ McCrum, Robert (29 January 2013). "Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies: a middlebrow triumph". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  30. ^ Rahim, Sameer (29 January 2013). "Costa Book Award: who would dare refuse Hilary Mantel her crown?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  31. ^ Staff writer (30 January 2013). "Hilary Mantel wins Costa Book Award". BBC News. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  32. ^ Alison Flood (7 March 2013). "Hilary Mantel adds David Cohen award to Booker and Costa prizes". The Guardian. Retrieved March 08, 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External links

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