Hilary Mantel, Man Booker Prize winner 2012

The Man Booker Prize 2012

Hilary Mantel stands to applause on winning the 2012 Booker Prize

Hilary Mantel ascended to the Booker Prize empyrean with the second volume of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, becoming the first woman to win the prize twice.

After the huge critical and commercial success of Wolf Hall, an air of inevitability surrounded the triumph of Bring Up the Bodies. The win put Mantel alongside J.M. Coetzee and Peter Carey on the double victors’ branch at the very top of the Booker Prize tree.

Impatient readers had to wait until 2020 for the concluding part of the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, as Mantel turned playwright, fashioning acclaimed stage adaptations of the first two volumes for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  
 

This gripping sequel to Wolf Hall is the second volume of Hilary Mantel’s remarkable trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell.

The Shortlist

Narcopolis
Swimming Home
The Lighthouse
Umbrella

The Longlist

The 2012 judges