Man Booker Prize Awarded

Hilary Mantel spent five years writing Wolf Hall, a historical novel about Henry VIII’s court centered on the king’s adviser, Thomas Cromwell. On Tuesday, October 6 her efforts were rewarded when she won the 41st annual Man Booker Prize, Britain’s most prestigious literary award. In accepting her award, Ms. Mantel remarked, “I had to interest the historians, I had to amuse the jaded palate of the critical establishment and most of all I had to capture the imagination of the general reader.” It would appear that she succeeded! In doing so she beat out others on the shortlist of finalists, including A.S. Byatt for The Children’s Book, J.M. Coetzee for Summertime, Adam Foulds for The Quickening Maze, Simon Mawer for The Glass Room and Sarah Waters for The Little Stranger. Previous winners of the Booker Prize include The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga in 2008 and The Gathering by Anne Enright in 2007. Wolf Hall will be released in the United States on October 13.