London: Hilary Mantel, the British author of the best-selling Wolf Hall trilogy and the first woman to win the prestigious Booker Prize twice, has died. She was 70, her publisher and agent said on Friday. Mantel, who was regarded as one of the greatest English-language novelists of this century, died "suddenly yet peacefully" on Thursday surrounded by close family and friends, according to her agent. A statement released by publishers HarperCollins said: "We are heartbroken at the death of our beloved author, Dame Hilary Mantel and our thoughts are with her friends and family, especially her husband, Gerald. This is a devastating loss and we can only be grateful she left us with such a magnificent body of work," it said.
Mantel was one of the greatest English novelists of this century and her beloved works are considered modern classics. She will be greatly missed," her agent wrote in a blog post. Born on July 6, 1952, in Glossop, Derbyshire in England, Mantel received the prestigious Booker Prize twice, for 2009's Wolf Hall, the first in the Thomas Cromwell series, and the 2012 follow-up Bring Up the Bodies, which also won the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. To date, The Wolf Hall trilogy has been translated into 41 languages with sales of over 5 million worldwide. The conclusion to her trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, was published in 2020 to much critical acclaim, became a fiction best-seller and was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2020.