Hilary Mantel has become the first woman and the first British writer to win the Man Booker Prize for a second time. Today, Mantel won the coveted literary award for her novel, Bring Up the Bodies – a follow up Wolf Hall, which also won the award back in 2009.
Bring Up the Bodies is the second installment of a trilogy, charting the life of Thomas Cromwell during the reign of King Henry VIII. The novel found success across the globe with the New York Times commending Mantel for her historical tale, calling it “vivid, strange, and brand new” in its approach to the English past. The Booker judges, consisting of people such as Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey), felt the same as the chairman of the awards and called Mantel the “the greatest modern English prose writer” in literature today. The shortlist for the prize included the likes of The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng and Umbrella by Will Self (one of the favourites for the award).
Mantel joins fellow double Booker Prize winners: Peter Carey and JM Coetzee. She is currently working on the third book to the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, scheduled for 2013.
