Hilary Mantel Wins 2012 Man Booker Prize

Posted on October 17, 2012

Hilary Mantel is the winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. She won the £50,000 prize for her novel, Bring up the Bodies. She is the first woman and first British author to win the prize twice.

Hilary Mantel also won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2009 for Wolf Hall, which was the first book in her historical fiction trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell. Bring up the Bodies, the second entry in the trilogy, charts the bloody downfall of Anne Boleyn.

Sir Peter Stothard, Chair of judges, said in a statement, "This double accolade is uniquely deserved. Hilary Mantel has rewritten the rules for historical fiction. In Bring up the Bodies, our greatest modern writer retells the origins of modern England."

In an interview, Hilary told Telegraph books editor Gaby Woods that the double win motivates her to write a great final entry in her series. She says, "I feel that people's expectations are high, but more than that a lot of readers are emotional involved. They're caught up in this saga as I am. Yes, I feel an obligation every thing I'm capable. of." Take a look: