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Quote by Hilary Mantel

“I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.”

Quote by Hilary Mantel

Author

British author Hilary Mantel is renowned for her historical novels, particularly for her Thomas Cromwell series, which has earned her international acclaim. Mantel's works are celebrated for their profound insights and literary achievements. more

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“It's complementary. It's fairly clear where the boundaries are. When I start telling you the contents of his head, I am making it up. But I try to make it up based on what is on the record. So even my wildest speculations [on Thomas Cromwell] will have a root somewhere.”

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Author:Hilary Mantel

“My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.”

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“People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.”

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“I loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That book gave me courage.”

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“When I began to read as an adult, my first big enthusiasm was Evelyn Waugh. I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then I started getting more up to date.”

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Author:Hilary Mantel

“When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.”

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Author:Hilary Mantel

“The writer I adore is Ivy Compton-Burnett.I couldn't get more than a few pages in when I first read her. In many ways, she is very clumsy and her plots are rubbish. But we don't read her for that. There are pages and pages of dialogue. What it requires is real effort and attention.”

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Author:Hilary Mantel

“If I am feeling broken, I can pick up one of [Ivy Compton-Burnett] books and the next morning I can write again. It puts my mechanism back.”

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Author:Hilary Mantel

“In terms of essays, I would say Oliver Sacks. His breadth of hard knowledge and imagination and empathy seems to constitute the perfect mind to me.”

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Author:Hilary Mantel

“It was a very funny conference. I knew [Christopher Hitchens] before that. He had always been a good angel to me. He once stole a phrase from me that came out of his mouth on television. I saw his eyes move sideways. I thought, It's alright, you can have it! The conference was light on women. Salman Rushdie showed up, they were doing their own thing. I didn't feel neglected!”

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Author:Hilary Mantel