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'Hilary Mary Mantel' CBE (born 6 July 1952) is an English novelist. She is the author of nine acclaimed novels, a short story collection and a memoir, and was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006.
Hilary Mantel was born in Glossop^[1], north Derbyshire in 1952. She was educated at a convent school in Cheshire and went on to the LSE and Sheffield University, where she studied law. After university she was briefly a social worker in a geriatric hospital, and much later used her experiences in her novels ''Every Day is Mother’s Day'' and ''Vacant Possession''. In 1977 she went to live in Botswana with her husband, then a geologist. In 1982 they moved on to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, where she would set her third novel, ''Eight Months on Ghazzah Street''.
Her first novel was published in 1985, and she returned to the UK the following year. In 1987 she was awarded the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for travel writing, and became the film critic of the ‘Spectator’. Her fourth novel, ''Fludd'', was awarded the Cheltenham Festival Prize, the Southern Arts Literature Prize, and the Winifred Holtby Prize. Her fifth novel, ''A Place of Greater Safety'', won the Sunday Express ‘Book of the Year Award’.
''A Change of Climate'', published in 1993, is a story of and an East Anglian family, former missionaries, torn apart by conflicts generated in Southern Africa in the early years of apartheid. ''An Experiment in Love'' published in 1995, is a story about childhood and university life, set in London in 1970. It was awarded the Hawthornden Prize.
''The Giant, O'Brian'' was published in 1998 and was followed by a memoir in 2003 called ''Giving Up the Ghost'', which was received with great acclaim.
In 2005 she published another novel ''Beyond Black'', focusing on the life of a spirit medium in Britain in the late 1990s.
She is currently working on an historical novel called Wolf Hall set in the court of King Henry VIII which has his chief minister Thomas Cromwell as the lead character.

Contents

Bibliography

Prizes and Awards

References

External links

Bibliography

★ Every Day is Mother's Day: Chatto & Windus, 1985

★ Vacant Possession: Chatto & Windus, 1986

★ Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: Viking, 1988

★ Fludd: Viking, 1989

★ A Place of Greater Safety: Viking, 1992

★ A Change of Climate: Viking, 1994

★ An Experiment in Love: Viking, 1995

★ The Giant, O'Brien: Fourth Estate, 1998

★ Giving Up the Ghost (A Memoir): Fourth Estate, 2003

★ Learning to Talk (Short Stories): Fourth Estate, 2003

★ Beyond Black: Fourth Estate, 2005

Prizes and Awards

★ 1987, Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize

★ 1990, Southern Arts Literature Prize (Fludd)

★ 1990, The Cheltenham Prize (Fludd)

★ 1990, Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize (Fludd)

★ 1992, Sunday Express Book of the Year (A Place of Greater Safety)

★ 1996, Hawthornden Prize (An Experiment in Love)

★ 2006, Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book) (shortlist) (Beyond Black)

★ 2006, CBE

★ 2006, Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) (Beyond Black)

References

1. Biography at British Council site

External links

★ Profile in The New Yorker

★ Profile at the British Council of Arts