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One of our greatest living writers discusses finishing the epic Wolf Hall trilogy, her debilitating illness and the future of the monarchy https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/hilary-mantel-haventhad-theordinary-markersof-womans-life/
On the morning of 9 March, 2019, Hilary Mantel finished writing The Mirror & the Light, the third volume of the Wolf Hall trilogy she had spent 15 years on
"I wanted to leave the reader feeling that it was a tragedy, but not a disaster. Cromwell changed England, and he probably did everything that he set out to do. So although he must have gone to his execution in great distress, I donât think it would be with regret"
Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies have chalked up:
Two Booker prizes
An RSC play (which won two Olivier Awards and a Tony)
A TV adaptation (which won three Baftas and a Golden Globe)
Two Booker prizes An RSC play (which won two Olivier Awards and a Tony) A TV adaptation (which won three Baftas and a Golden Globe)
How did she celebrate when 912 pages of book number three were completed?"I just wanted to sleep. I donât have any rituals around writing. Strong tea is my greatest vice. So I think it was just a matter of, âPut the kettle on, Geraldâ"
Gerald McEwen is her husband of 49 years (with a break of two, when they got divorced and then remarried) and a retired geologist. They met when they were 16 and married four years later. For a decade they have lived in Devon, in an apartment overlooking the sea
Mantel is the first woman to have won a Booker prize twice Last year she was made a Companion of Literature (the highest award bestowed by the Royal Society of Literature) In 2006 she was awarded a CBE In 2014 she became a Dame
"I think itâs the end game. I donât know how much longer the institution will go on. Iâm not sure if it will outlast William. So I think it will be their last big era"
"I wish the Queen had felt able to abdicate, because Charles has had to wait such a long time. I understand that she thinks of this as a sacred task, from which you simply cannot abdicate, whereas the rest of us think of it as a job, from which you should be able to retire"
"I wonder if sheâs the only person who really believes in the monarchy now, and Iâm sure she believes with all her heart. She believes that she cannot cease to be a monarch â she made those promises to God. Itâs such a clichĂ© to say, but what a lonely position to be in"
Mantel grew up as part of an Irish Catholic family in Derbyshire. Her father was a clerk; her mother had worked in a mill. When she was six, her motherâs lover, Jack Mantel, moved in and her father moved to the spare room.
At 11, her father left. She never saw him again
When Mantel was 12 she lost her religion."I just woke up one day and didnât believe anything any more...And after encountering various priests, I began to think that they were rather worse than the average human being, not better"
Now, she says, she has a religious mindset and a spiritual outlook, but doesnât observe any particular faith. "For a time I thought there was nothing, that the world is all there is, the material is all that matters. But I donât think that now"
Mantel had always been sickly â the family doctor used to call her Miss Neverwell. In her early 20s she suffered nausea and agonising menstrual cramps. Doctors diagnosed depression; one suggested it was stress caused by her ambition, another recommended she give up writing
She was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, one of which had a side effect of causing psychosis in the form of a disorder called akathisia, which she has described as the worst thing she has ever experienced in her life
Years later, Mantel diagnosed herself with endometriosis. She had her womb, ovaries and part of her bowel removed."Too much active endometriosis had been left behind, and it continued to damage my body...My body was unreliable and life was quite narrow and effortful"
She was put on a reckless-sounding trial-and-error hormone treatment. She went from a size eight to an 18."I had developed a steroid moonface. My hair had come out in handfuls. I was deaf, my eyesight was blurred by constant headaches, and my legs were swollen like bolsters"
"As far as endometriosis is concerned, Iâm a burnt-out case. What Iâm suffering from now is the 'cures' â the knock-on effects. It wasnât as simple as losing my fertility at 27, there is a consequence for the body as a whole, and no one knew what that was going to be"
"In some ways I donât even know what age I am. When you have a menopause at 27, you donât have the ordinary markers of a womanâs life. Iâm not strong. And I probably am older than I should be"
