Saturday, October 10, 2009

Mantelpieces

There's another excellent interview with Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel, this time in The Independent with Boyd Tonkin. And on the same page there is a video of her reading from Wolf Hall which was filmed in my favourite bookshop - Daunt Books in London - so do have an oggle.

And the author has contributed an exclusive short story - The Heart Fails Without Warning - to The Guardian.

Postscript :

Robert McCrum sees similarities between Mantel and this week's Nobel prize winner, and salutes their hard work and dedication in the face of considerable adversity :

Müller suffered horribly under Ceaucescu, and her work has been shaped by political repression. Mantel's early adult life was blighted by a debilitating, undiagnosed illness. Müller committed herself to her writing in great privation and obscurity. Mantel laboured for years on a book (A Place of Greater Safety) that was repeatedly rejected, and finally shoved into a drawer before its belated publication in 1992. Now, after years of quiet dedication, both women have been fully recognised. This underlines a fundamental truism I have always believed about the book world: it's the work, not the life, that matters.

1 comment:

Preets said...

I really liked that short story! And I've enjoyed every interview I've read with her -- she comes across as thoughtful and opinionated, my favourite kind of person :-). But for some reason I have very little desire to read Wolf Hall. I do want to read the Byatt and the Waters, though.