Hilary Mantel wins Man Booker prize for second time | Books | The Guardian Hilary Mantel Hilary Mantel wins Man Booker prize for second time Bring Up the Bodies is first sequel to triumph in prize's 43-year history, and author is first woman and first Briton to win twice Tuesday 16 October 2012 18.34 EDT First published on Tuesday 16 October 2012 18.34 EDT Close This article is 4 years old Hilary Mantel has made Man Booker prize history by becoming the first woman and the first British writer to win the literary award twice. Receiving the prize, Mantel joked: "You wait 20 years for a Booker prize and then two come along at once." Bring Up the Bodies, the blistering and bloody second instalment of her trilogy charting the life of Thomas Cromwell, was also the first sequel to triumph in the prize's 43-year history. The first instalment, Wolf Hall, won three years ago.

The chairman of the Booker judges, Sir Peter Stothard, called Mantel "the greatest modern English prose writer" working today, and said she had "rewritten the book on writing historical fiction". "We are very proud to be reading English at the time she is writing. I don't think I've read any English novelist in recent years who has such complete control over the way she uses prose to do what she wants to do, like a singer or a pianist," Stothard said. Mantel, 60, joins the Australian Peter Carey and the South African JM Coetzee as a double Booker winner. She triumphed from a shortlist that was striking in its contrast to last year, when judges emphasised readability. This year it was about the power of prose and re-readability. "There is no point in having a text for this prize that is dead as soon as it is read," Stothard said. "There are many perfectly good books for which that is true – they are a good read, but you wouldn't want to read them again.

This prize is for books that will be read in decades to come and each time you read them they reveal something different." The 2012 shortlist included challenging books, not least the hotly tipped Umbrella, by Will Self, written in a high modernist stream of consciousness with barely a paragraph break, let alone chapters. The others were The Garden of Evening Mists, the second novel from the Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng; Deborah Levy's Swimming Home; and two first novels – Alison Moore's The Lighthouse and Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis. Mantel, who has embarked on writing the third instalment, said the award was a "vote of confidence" and "act of faith". But is it not also enormous pressure? She told journalists: "When I start writing it I'll forget all of this because every day has its new problems … it's you struggling with your subject matter and a blank screen." She said Bring Up the Bodies was "a more fully achieved book than Wolf Hall. Formally, it probably has the edge." Three years ago, she said she would be spending the prize money on "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll".

On Tuesday night, she said it would be spent on rehab, before adding a more pragmatic answer – "my pension, probably". The judges' decision, reached in two hours and 16 minutes, came after "a rigorous process of literary criticism", said Stothard, who edits the Times Literary Supplement. There was no vote, which he said would have been an act of desperation. "We didn't allow anybody to say 'I like this', 'I really enjoyed it', 'this is the one for me'. By the very nature of that, each book was analysed and argued over and the ones for which arguments were weaker than others fell away." Stothard said he thought Bring Up the Bodies "utterly surpassed" the achievement of Wolf Hall, although he stressed the judges did not discuss that first novel. "It is an extraordinary book in its own right but it is tighter. I think she has learned lessons from Wolf Hall in the way that the prose is written." Bring Up the Bodies is more condensed than Wolf Hall in that it charts the nine months of events in 1535 that lead to the execution of Anne Boleyn.

It is one of the greatest, best-known stories in English history, yet Mantel "is able to bring it to life as though for the first time", Stothard said. "It is a bloody story, but Hilary Mantel is a writer who thinks through the blood and uses her art and power of prose to create moral ambiguities and the real uncertainty of political life then and a pale imitation of a political life now." Stothard said he saw "as much Don Corleone in this book as DH Lawrence", in that the moral ambiguities of Cromwell that Mantel explores could be from The Godfather, and the "description of the English landscape and the characters in this book could be out of The Rainbow". Wolf Hall became a huge bestseller, a prospect that now awaits Bring Up the Bodies. Jonathan Ruppin, web editor of Foyles bookshops, said: "This rare double Man Booker win confirms her output as essential reading Mantel has been writing superb fiction for much longer than she has been winning major awards, so many readers will soon discover that she is their new favourite author.

There's every possibility she might pull off a unique treble when she completes the trilogy." The third book is to be called The Mirror and the Light, and the works will get a wider audience as the BBC has bought the rights. A six-hour adaptation of the first two books, by Peter Straughan, is planned for late 2013. The £50,000 prize was handed out at London's Guildhall after a judging panel consisting of the Downton actor Dan Stevens, the academic and critic Dinah Birch, the historian Amanda Foreman and the academic and writer Bharat Tandon debated who should win on Tuesday afternoon. It was not a unanimous decision in the sense that everyone would have picked it if put to a vote, but Stothard said: "There was absolute consensus that the most powerful arguments were those deployed for Bring Up the Bodies." An exclusive short story by the winner of the Man Booker 2012 for Bring Up the Bodies Published: 19 Oct 2012 Her second Booker prize has established her as one of the greatest living writers of historical fiction.

She talks about the pressure of winning a third – and the dangers of getting lost in the past Published: 17 Oct 2012 After winning the Man Booker prize for a second time, Hilary Mantel speaks to arts correspondent Mark Brown Published: 17 Oct 2012 Hilary Mantel has taken the Man Booker prize for an historic second time with Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to her 2009 winner on the life of Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall Published: 16 Oct 2012 Hilary Mantel's second Booker winner is just the latest in a brilliant catalogue | Books | The Guardian Booker prize Hilary Mantel's second Booker winner is just the latest in a brilliant catalogue After reading her masterful Bring Up the Bodies, no one can argue that historical fiction is irrelevant to our time Hilary Mantel has won her second Man Booker prize for Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to the remarkably successful Wolf Hall.

Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Tuesday 16 October 2012 17.00 EDT First published on Tuesday 16 October 2012 17.00 EDT Close This article is 4 years old This is an unprecedented year for the Man Booker. Not only does Hilary Mantel become the first British novelist and the first woman to win the prize twice, she is also the first writer to win double glory with a sequel. Bring Up the Bodies is a continuation, in effect, of the literary project that began with Wolf Hall but expanded to become a promised trilogy: the rehabilitation of Thomas Cromwell, fixer and eventual victim of Henry VIII's break with Rome, and the reimagining of the Tudor period in thrillingly close focus and startlingly immediate prose. This volume follows the downfall and execution of Anne Boleyn, in scenes that become ever more taut as the scaffold approaches. We may know the outcome, but Cromwell does not; Mantel's genius, as she inhabits Cromwell's consciousness in an urgent present tense, is to animate history in all its contingency and peril.

The character of Anne, her mutability and ultimate unknowability, raises fertile questions about fiction and representation, while no one who reads the scenes of interrogation and torture, forced into uneasy sympathy with the affable Cromwell's chilling realpolitik, can consider historical fiction irrelevant to our own times. But is the awarding of the prize a second time to what is essentially volume two in one very long book a missed opportunity? The judges had already noted "her even greater mastery of the method", so in some ways it makes sense to set a double crown on our most brilliant English writer, brought into the spotlight by her first Booker in 2009. Her previous novels would have made worthy winners, too, especially her French Revolution epic A Place of Greater Safety, which does for Paris in the 1790s what Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies do for the Tudor era, or Beyond Black, an extraordinary novel about lost souls and psychic pain set on the margins of modern Britain and the spirit world, which is indeed outlandishly dark. One of the happy results of her first Booker win was a 900% boost in sales for her backlist.

Indeed, Wolf Hall became the fastest-selling winner in the prize's history: a happy marriage of literary quality and popular approval. Mantel is a singular, uncompromising writer, but her current subject matter – high intrigue and low cunning at the Tudor court – happens to have wide appeal. The other novels on the shortlist could never be so popular. Deborah Levy's Freudian tale of madness among the middle classes, Jeet Thayil's brilliantly rambling stories of druggy Bombay, Tan Twan Eng's exploration of atrocity and artistry, Alison Moore's slow-burning portrait of a man in flight from his past: Mantel's is, literally and metaphorically, a weightier book than these. But Mantel's real challenger on the shortlist, and the novel that has missed out to her double coronation, must have been Will Self's Umbrella. An undeniably daunting slab of high modernist prose, without such concessions as speech marks or paragraph breaks, it's also a brilliantly absorbing and audacious meditation on madness, consciousness, technology, war and the mess of the 20th century.

As a highbrow panel dropped the previous year's demands for "readability" in favour of complexity and the sheer pleasures of innovative prose, it looked for a while as though it could have been Self's year. As it is, perhaps Umbrella would have been too radical a choice for a prize that, as the country's biggest, cannot help but be a little conservative. And so the judges have rewarded a popular and brilliant book – again – and left a poisoned chalice for whoever is on the panel when the third part of Mantel's trilogy comes out. An exclusive short story by the winner of the Man Booker 2012 for Bring Up the Bodies Published: 19 Oct 2012 Her second Booker prize has established her as one of the greatest living writers of historical fiction.

She talks about the pressure of winning a third – and the dangers of getting lost in the past Published: 17 Oct 2012 After winning the Man Booker prize for a second time, Hilary Mantel speaks to arts correspondent Mark Brown Published: 17 Oct 2012 Bring Up the Bodies is first sequel to triumph in prize's 43-year history, and author is first woman and first Briton to win twice Published: 16 Oct 2012 Hilary Mantel wins Man Booker Prize for a record second time - Telegraph Booker Prize Hilary Mantel wins Man Booker Prize for a record second time When Hilary Mantel wrote her first historical novel, it was turned down by a string of publishers who said her work was too weighty for readers who preferred “chick lit in long frocks”. Comments When Bring Up The Bodies won Britain’s foremost literary award last night, its author could not resist a joke. “I don’t know,” said Hilary Mantel. “You wait 20 years for a Booker Prize and two come along at once...” Mantel became the first British author - and the first woman - to win the Man Booker Prize twice.

Bring Up The Bodies beat five other shortlisted titles including Will Self’s Umbrella, the bookmaker’s favourite. Not bad for an author whose first historical novel was turned down by a string of publishers who said her work was too weighty for readers who preferred “chick lit in long frocks”. Bring Up The Bodies chronicles the downfall of Anne Boleyn through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. The judges said it “utterly surpassed” its predecessor, Wolf Hall, which won the prize in 2009. Related Articles Booker Prize 2012: a report from the Booker Prize dinner 17 Oct 2012 Only two writers have done the double before: JM Coetzee and Peter Carey, who hail from South Africa and Australia respectively. Sir Peter Stothard, chairman of the judges, hailed Mantel as “the greatest English prose writer” of modern times and praised her ability to re-cast one of the most familiar episodes in British history. “This is a bloody story of the death of Anne Boleyn but Hilary Mantel is a writer who thinks through the blood,” he said.

“It is a well-trodden story and yet she has the ability to bring it to life as though for the first time.” Sir Peter compared Mantel’s portrayal of Thomas Cromwell to Don Corleone. “There is certainly a Godfather element to this book, including the moral ambiguity,” he said. The win came as a happy surprise for Mantel, 60, who said when shortlisted: “Nobody, including me, expects a writer to do it twice. But it would not be human to not want to win.” Accepting the award to cheers from the audience at London’s Guildhall, Mantel said: “I have to do something very difficult now: I have to go away and write the third part of the trilogy. “I assure you I have no expectations that I will be standing here again. But I regard this as an act of faith and a vote of confidence. Thank you.” Later she was asked if Bring Up The Bodies was her best book. She replied: “They are all so different. This one is completely different to Wolf Hall. “I think it’s probably a more fully achieved book than Wolf Hall.

But I think Wolf Hall was trying to do something far more difficult in that it was trying to create a whole world for people to step into and trying to span a great many years. “This was a tauter narrative spanning nine months and heading in one direction only.” Mantel, a former social worker, first attempted historical fiction in 1979 with A Place of Greater Safety, set during the French Revolution. It was rejected by every publisher who read it and did not see the light of day until 1992. However, such is her popularity now that the BBC has snapped up the rights to Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and is turning them into a six-part period drama. This year’s judging panel included Dan Stevens, the Downton Abbey actor, and was chaired by Sir Peter, editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Sir Peter was at pains to distance himself from last year’s judges, who were criticised for citing “readability” as a key criterion. There was disagreement over which book should win this year but the judges arrived at Bring Up The Bodies via “a rigorous process of literary criticism”, he said.

Nevertheless, Bring Up The Bodies has proved to be the most “readable” book on the shortlist, selling over 100,000 copies so far in Britain. When Mantel won in 2009, she joked that she would spend the money on “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll”. And this year? “Rehab,” she replied. After a moment’s reflection, she added: “I’m afraid the answer will be much duller this year: my pension, probably. Although I think I’ve got a few writing years in my yet.” Mantel said she was “completely astonished” to win and laughed off the idea that she is Britain’s greatest living prose writer. “I remember in 2009 someone said, ‘Do you realise tonight you’re the best writer in the world?’ And I thought, how absurd. It’s not the Olympics. It’s not a competition. “You’re only as good as your last paragraph, and I haven’t even written one of those today.” Hilary Mantel | So, What's Next For Twice Man Booker Prize Winner Hilary Mantel? | Contactmusic.com So, What's Next For Twice Man Booker Prize Winner...

So, What's Next For Twice Man Booker Prize Winner Hilary Mantel? Picture: Hilary Mantel Winner of The Man Booker 2009 Prize - Photocall held at The Guildhall London, England - 06.10.09 Yesterday, Hilary Mantel made history two-fold: she became the first woman ever since its original conception, and first Brit ever, to win the Man Booker prize twice with her book 'Bring Up the Bodies', beating Will Self to the coveted prize. Her novel is the second in an as-yet-unfinished trilogy about Oliver Cromwell and the Tudors in the 17h century. But with such incredible accolades under her belt, what's next for the history writer, that is forging her own space in literature? First and foremost, she should probably finish that trilogy. Speaking to the Telegraph, she described the prospect of writing the third book as “going into the hardest thing [she] will ever have to do” and admitting that she feels somewhat indebt to her readers, because firstly they have such “high expectations” and secondly “a lot of people are emotionally involved, they're caught up in this saga”.

Judging by the success of the first two novels, the third is unlikely to disappoint! The BBC have also announced that they will be adapting the first two books 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies' into a six part mini-series, and is currently the project of Peter Straughan, who is responsible for the 2011 film 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' another book adaptation, reports the Wall Street Journal. It will be broadcast next year. Plus, the RSC are considering an adaptation of the existing books for the stage. Clearly, Mantel's novels about Oliver Cromwell and his relationship with Henry VIII have truly struck a chord with the reading public, as well as British media markets, but what is it that Mantel considers the shining light that draws readers in? Speaking to The Wall Street Journal before the prize was announced she said: “[Cromwell's] a man struggling alongside other men to serve a capricious, neurotic, whimsical monarch, who made the best of circumstances both for himself and for his country.” So, Where does mantel go from here? It seems the resounding answer is 'up'.

Contactmusic Hilary Mantel: Author didn’t expect Bring Up the Bodies to win second Booker prize | Toronto Star Books Hilary Mantel: Author didn’t expect Bring Up the Bodies to win second Booker prize Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, first parts of Hilary Mantel's trilogy on Thomas Cromwell, will become BBC TV series. Hilary Mantel says life has been a blur since she won her second Man Booker Prize for Bring Up the Bodies. (Ben Pruchnie / GETTY IMAGES) By GREG QUILLBOOKS COLUMNIST Tues., Oct. 23, 2012 When British historical novelist Hilary Mantel was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2009 for Wolf Hall, the first volume in her trilogy about Henry VIII’s leading henchman, Thomas Cromwell, she believed the pressure of having to compete for such a prestigious literary award was well behind her. But just three years later, Mantel is scooping up the same accolades again for the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. Winning the 2012 prize has made a historical figure of the reclusive author, the first British writer and the first woman to win the Man Booker twice.

Bring Up the Bodies was also the first sequel to win the prize in its 43-year history and has seriously upgraded the value of historical fiction, long considered neither literary fish nor literary fowl. “In 2009, I said to myself I don’t ever need to think about this again, but when I was shortlisted (the second time) I did desperately want to win,” Mantel said from her home in Budleigh Salterton, a tiny village on the Devon coast, where she lives with her husband, Gerald. “It seems there’s a 9-year-old inside who wants to win all the prizes. But until the verdict came, I really didn’t think I’d win. I think it was a very strong short list this year, really too close to call ...

and when it comes to a vote it would be natural to give the prize to a person who had not already won.” Article Continued Below Modesty becomes Mantel, 60, who endured a bleak and terrifying childhood on the edge of the northern Derbyshire moors and suffered excruciating pain for much of her adult life from endometriosis, a condition she diagnosed herself, and which was only partially alleviated by drugs and, eventually, radical surgery that made it impossible for her to bear children. An uneven writer of 12 previous books, who lived for several years with her husband in Botswana and Saudi Arabia, Mantel financed her endeavours as a freelance journalist, a literary and movie critic, and as a teacher. She had attracted little notice in literary circles until Wolf Hall became a bestseller and now, with the Man Booker doubleheader. The phenomenal success of her Cromwell books — Mantel has already begun the final volume, titled The Mirror and the Light — plays right into Britons’ enduring fascination with all things Tudor.

On the heels of HBO’s popular but historically inaccurate bodice-ripper The Tudors, the BBC has just announced plans to turn Mantel’s more-or-less historically accurate Cromwell books into a big-budget six-parter, to begin airing next year. That will make Mantel a household name and a bankable showbiz mover-and-shaker, even if it’s the last thing on her mind. The series is based on two plays that are being adapted from the novels for the stage by Mike Poulton, a playwright who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, producer of the theatrical version. “There’s still a great deal of work to do, but what we’re hoping is to mount two plays — a Wolf Hall play and then a Bring Up the Bodies play — which people could see on subsequent evenings,” Mantel said. The BBC series, she promised, will be “so completely different from The Tudors.” “When you change the angle you change the story and, in the BBC series, the focus will be on Cromwell, who was at the centre of the action in Henry’s court.

His story has never been told before, and by viewing these well-known events through his eyes, they come up new and fresh.” Meticulously researched, Mantel’s Tudor tales make vivid reading, an attribute that has attracted academics and filmmakers alike. The novelist has appeared in several panel discussions about the period with leading historians and is scheduled to narrate an upcoming documentary on Anne Boleyn, Henry’s doomed second wife, whose pursuit and death are covered in Bring Up the Bodies, which several critics have likened to a documentary in prose, for its detail and complexity. “I wouldn’t call myself an expert on all aspects of Tudor history,” Mantel said. “I know a lot about Thomas Cromwell and that a major biography about him is being written now by (Oxford professor and historian) Dermot McCullough, for publication in 2017. Cromwell’s having his moment, after many years in eclipse.” The events of the past week, since winning her second Booker prize, are a blur, Mantel said, “except for one woman who wanted to know whether I had a tattoo.” “I’ve lost count of how many interviews I’ve done, for newspapers, magazines, TV and radio all over the world.

But then, I’ve been very busy since the book’s publication in May. “I have no typical working day, but for the past several months I’ve put myself at other people’s disposal, so I’m looking forward to some quiet time, to write the next book.” Second Booker for 'heroine of British literature' Hilary Mantel | Booker Prize News | The Week UK Second Booker for 'heroine of British literature' Hilary Mantel Oct 17, 2012 And she could win the prize again, even if her trilogy is proving hard going for some readers email Getty images YOU WAIT 20 years for a Man Booker Prize and two come along at once, quipped Hilary Mantel last night as she became the first British author, and first woman, to win the prestigious literary award for a second time. She beat five other shortlisted titles, including the bookies' favourite Umbrella by Will Self. The prize was awarded for Bring up the Bodies, a historical novel about the downfall of Anne Boleyn as seen through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. The book is the second in a planned trilogy by Mantel.

The first, Wolf Hall, won the Booker in 2009 but only after it had been turned down by a string of publishers, who said her work was too weighty for readers who preferred "chick lit in long frocks". The judges said Bring up the Bodies "utterly surpassed" Wolf Hall. Former Times editor Sir Peter Stothard, chairman of the judges, hailed Mantel as "the greatest English prose writer" of modern times and praised her ability to re-cast one of the most familiar episodes in British history. "This is a bloody story of the death of Anne Boleyn but Hilary Mantel is a writer who thinks through the blood," he said. "It is a well-trodden story and yet she has the ability to bring it to life as though for the first time." The judges were "spot on" writes Erica Wagner in The Times today. "Wolf Hall was a tour de force, but its sequel is leaner, more brilliant (who would have thought it possible?), more shocking than its predecessor." Wagner says she "wouldn't be in the least surprised" if Mantel took home a third Booker prize for the next novel in the trilogy, currently being written.

"She is a heroine of British literature, her steady gathering of literary power a lesson to writers and readers both," says Wagner. "How lucky we are to have her in our midst." The Spectator 's David Blackburn also believes it was the "right" choice, describing Bring up the Bodies as the "most accomplished book on the list". He says it was "challenging but fundamentally readable thanks to the execution and, it must be said, the drama of the history of that period, which Mantel handles with the insight of a historian, though thankfully not a historian's total fidelity." At a Soho party to celebrate Mantel's victory last night, there no discussion of the detractors who find Mantel's prose hard going. As one reader on The Daily Telegraph website complains, it took "an awfully long time to plough through" Bringing up the Bodies. "There was a lack of pace, and, I thought, a lot of speculative history padding a story that could have been told more eloquently." Sign up for our daily newsletter Newsletter Booker Prize | News and Photos | Contactmusic.com Booker Prize Paul Beatty lands the award for 'The Sellout'. This year is a year for many literary firsts.

Just as Bob Dylan has been named the first musician to win the Nobel Literature Prize, Paul Beatty is the first American to win the UK's long coveted Man Booker Prize ; an award that only recently became open to everyone. The Sellout by Paul Beatty wins the 2016 Man Booker Prize The author of the best-selling racial satire novel 'The Sellout' takes home the 47 year old award, which includes a £50,000 ($61,000) cash prize, as the first person in the US to have done so. The prize has only been open to authors from countries outside of the UK and the British Commonwealth for three years and Beatty was up against one other American writer this year: Ottessa Moshfegh, who published her first novel 'Eileen' in 2015. Booker Prize Jamaican author James won the 2015 prize for his third novel 'A Brief History of Seven Killings' last night.

In a story that proves you should never give up on your dreams, 2015’s Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James revealed that one of his previous novels ‘John Crow’s Devil’ was turned down by no fewer than 78 publishers. The 44 year old Jamaican novelist won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize on Tuesday night (October 13th) for his third book ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’, inspired by the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley and with a misleading title, as it runs to 680 pages. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 the morning after his win, James spoke about the difficulties he had in initially getting his career off the ground. He said: “I had to sit down and add it up one day and I had no idea it was that much.” Atmosphere Booker Prize Can Joshua Ferris become the first American to win the Man Booker Prize? U.S writers dominated the talk after the announcement of the Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2014, with both Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler nominated for their novels To Rise Again at a Decent Hour and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

It is the first year that American authors are eligible for the £50,000 prize, previously limited to novels by citizens of Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth. Can Howard Jacobson win the Booker Prize for a second time? [Getty/Stuart WIlson] The chair of the panel, AC Grayling, said: "As the Man Booker Prize expands its borders, these six exceptional books take the reader on journeys around the world, between the UK, New York, Thailand, Italy, Calcutta and times past, present and future. David Mitchell Booker Prize A third of nominees for the Man Booker Prize 2014 are Americans, but Dona Tarrt did not make the list. In the first year since opening up nominations to international writers, The Man Booker Prize has announced its longlist for 2014 with almost a third of writers coming from America. In a much criticised decision , organisers of the prestigious literary prize announced last year that the rules of eligibility were changing - prompting fears that the list would be swamped by U.S. writers.

The Man Booker Prize 2013 [Getty/WPA Pool] Of the 13 longlisted authors for 2014, Joshua Ferris, Karen Joy Fowler, Siri Hustvedt and Richard Powers would not have been eligible under the original rules. Nevertheless, judges left of American author Dona Tartt, whose novel The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize. Booker Prize Who will win tonight's Man Booker Prize 2013? Though Jim Crace is the favourite for tonight's Man Booker Prize for his final novel, Harvest, literary fans shouldn't assume that the judging panel - headed by Robert Macfarlane - will resort to tributes for the outgoing author. At 28, New Zealand's Eleanor Catton would become the prize's youngest winner and her novel The Luminaries is considered the most ambitious and entertaining of the year. Eleanor Catton With Her Booker Prize Nominated 'The Lumanaries' At over 800 pages, Catton's tome follows the story of the New Zealand gold rush.

Its protagonist Walter Moody arrives in the country in 1866 to find a group of 12 men discussing a wealthy man who has vanished, a whore who has tried to end her life and a huge fortune discovered in the home of a down-on-his-luck drunk. Moody is drawn into the gripping mystery set in the gold-rush boom and bust of the mid-19th century. Hilary Mantel Melvyn Bragg Booker Prize Be prepared to see an unnerving lack of u's and a frightful number of alternative spellings as American writers will be allowed to enter the Man Booker Prize starting next year. The Man Booker Prize has served as the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Commonwealth's most prestigious award for books and authors since it's inception in 1969. On Sunday, 15 September, The Sunday Times reported that a change was heading it's way, as authors from the other side of the pond will be able to submit entries to the award for the first time ever starting in 2014.

Hilary Mantel won the award last year The report from the Times revealed plans from the heads of the award to open the prize up to a wider pool of talent, and in doing so open it up to a wider audience. In a bid further cement the reputation of the Man Booker Prize as the one of world's leading awards for writers, the organisers have deemed the American market as a keen demographic to infiltrate and ensure that interest is maintained and entries are still regularly submitted. According to the Times, "the organisers increasingly believe that excluding writers from America is anachronistic. The Booker committee believes US writers must be allowed to compete to ensure the award's global reputation." Booker Prize Can Jim Crace win the Booker Prize at the second time of asking? The Hertfordshire born author Jim Crace has been installed as the bookies favourite for this year's Man Booker Prize for his novel Harvest, which he says will be his last. The book tells the story of a remote village as British economic progress disrupts pastoral idyll following the Enclosure Act. Essentially, the country joined together all the small plots of land, with owners given their share based on the amount they owned before the act - it unsurprisingly benefitted the wealthy.

The Booker Prize is relatively familiar territory for Crace, who was shortlisted in 1997 for his book Quarantine though was beaten by Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. This time, the bookmakers have him as the marginal favourite, though the pensive 67-year-old writer will avoid getting overexcited given results in recent years. Booker Prize Hilary Mantel Last night, Hilary Mantel made history when she became the first woman and also the first living British author to win the Man Booker Prize twice, BBC News reports. Not only that, but Mantel’s novel Bring Up The Bodies is also the first direct sequel to win for the second time. Mantel was made a CBE in 2006, though she was then only just starting to break into the public realm. In 2009, Hilary Mantel won the prize for Wolf Hall, which chronicled Thomas Cromwell’s rise from being a blacksmith’s son, to having a prime position in Henry VIII’s court. Bring Up The Bodies is a continuation of Cromwell’s story, which will be completed in the final instalment of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror and the Light.

The series is currently being adapted for a six part series for BBC Two, which is expected to be broadcast late next year. Though her success hardly comes as a surprise, many had Will Self pegged as last night’s champion, for his novel Umbrella. The 2012 Man Booker Prize was one for the record books though, as Mantel walked away with the prize and with the knowledge that she has made literary history on three scores. Speaking about last night’s triumph, Hilary Mantel described the win as “an act of faith and a vote of confidence” by the judging panel and joked “You wait 20 years for a Booker Prize and two come along at once." Hilary Mantel wins her second Booker Prize - Telegraph Booker Prize Hilary Mantel wins her second Booker Prize When Bring Up The Bodies won Britain’s foremost literary award last night, its author, Hilary Mantel, could not resist a joke. Hilary Mantel wins the Man Booker Prize 2012 with her book 'Bring Up The Bodies' at The Guildhall in London Photo: GETTY Follow “I don’t know,” said Hilary Mantel.

“You wait 20 years for a Booker Prize and two come along at once ...” Mantel became the first British author – and the first woman – to win the Man Booker Prize twice. Bring Up The Bodies beat five other shortlisted titles including Will Self’s Umbrella, the bookmaker’s favourite. Not bad for an author whose first historical novel was turned down by a string of publishers who said her work was too weighty for readers who preferred “chick lit in long frocks”. Bring Up The Bodies chronicles the downfall of Anne Boleyn through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. The judges said it “utterly surpassed” its predecessor, Wolf Hall, which won the prize in 2009. Only two writers have done the double before: JM Coetzee and Peter Carey, who hail from South Africa and Australia respectively. Related Articles Booker Prize 2012: a report from the Booker Prize dinner 17 Oct 2012 Sir Peter Stothard, chairman of the judges, hailed Mantel as “the greatest English prose writer” of modern times and praised her ability to recast one of the most familiar episodes in British history.

“This is a bloody story of the death of Anne Boleyn but Hilary Mantel is a writer who thinks through the blood,” he said. “It is a well-trodden story and yet she has the ability to bring it to life as though for the first time.” Sir Peter compared Mantel’s portrayal of Thomas Cromwell to Don Corleone. “There is certainly a Godfather element to this book, including the moral ambiguity,” he said. The win came as a happy surprise for Mantel, 60, who said when shortlisted: “Nobody, including me, expects a writer to do it twice. But it would not be human to not want to win.” Accepting the award to cheers from the audience at London’s Guildhall, Mantel said: “I have to do something very difficult now: I have to go away and write the third part of the trilogy. “I assure you I have no expectations that I will be standing here again. But I regard this as an act of faith and a vote of confidence. Thank you.” Later she was asked if Bring Up The Bodies was her best book. She replied: “They are all so different. This one is completely different to Wolf Hall.

“I think it’s probably a more fully achieved book than Wolf Hall. But I think Wolf Hall was trying to do something far more difficult in that it was trying to create a whole world for people to step into and trying to span a great many years. “This was a tauter narrative spanning nine months and heading in one direction only.” Mantel, a former social worker, first attempted historical fiction in 1979 with A Place of Greater Safety, set during the French Revolution. It was rejected by every publisher who read it and did not see the light of day until 1992. However, such is her popularity now that the BBC has snapped up the rights to Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and is turning them into a six-part period drama. This year’s judging panel included Dan Stevens, the Downton Abbey actor, and was chaired by Sir Peter, editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Sir Peter was at pains to distance himself from last year’s judges, who were criticised for citing “readability” as a key criteria. There was disagreement over which book should win this year but the judges arrived at Bring Up The Bodies via “a rigorous process of literary criticism”, he said.

Nevertheless, Bring Up The Bodies has proved to be the most “readable” book on the shortlist, selling over 100,000 copies so far in Britain. When Mantel won in 2009, she joked that she would spend the money on “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll”. And this year? “Rehab,” she replied. After a moment’s reflection, she added: “I’m afraid the answer will be much duller this year: my pension, probably. Although I think I’ve got a few writing years in my yet.” Mantel said she was “completely astonished” to win and laughed off the idea that she is Britain’s greatest living prose writer. “I remember in 2009 someone said, ‘Do you realise tonight you’re the best writer in the world?’ And I thought, how absurd. It’s not the Olympics. It’s not a competition. “You’re only as good as your last paragraph, and I haven’t even written one of those today.”

Question: In 2012 , who became the first woman writer to win the Booker Prize for the second time ?
Answer: HILARY MANTEL