Ghosts of a lifetime (I)

Hilary Mantel, one of the most acclaimed writers in the world, has achieved truly incredible milestones. But who is the woman behind such success?

«A masterpiece of spirit. The past, which has been so meticulously erased, comes back to life here » - Rachel Cusk

"Amazingly written ... a very unorthodox account of what, in the inner life, is essentially unspeakable" - Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books

“Simply stunning. Transparent and true » - The Guardian

«An extraordinary story. At times it is comical, at times it is dark, but above all it is a story of survival » - The Spectator

Hilary Mantel, one of the most acclaimed writers in the world, has achieved truly incredible achievements: she was the first British author and the first woman to win the Man Booker Prize twice; with Anna Bolena, a family affair for the first time in forty-three years of the award's history, the victory was awarded to a sequel; "The Guardian" declared Wolf Hall the best book of the twenty-first century; was included in Time magazine's list of the hundred most influential people in the world. But who is the woman behind such success? In rural postwar England, Hilary Mantel grew up convinced that the most extraordinary feats were within her reach. From the disappearance of his father to the death of his stepfather, his life is marked by a series of unbridgeable losses. And then, at nineteen, the disease: over the course of years of misdiagnosis, the writer has undergone paternalistic psychiatric treatment and destructive surgery that has left her with no hope of having children. Overwhelmed by pain and sadness, she felt the need to "materialize in writing every morning," one novel after another. The rest is history.