Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel dies at 70

Dame Hilary Mantel, author of the best-selling Wolf Hall trilogy, has died aged 70, her publisher has confirmed.

She won the Booker Prize twice, for 2009's Wolf Hall, the first in the Thomas Cromwell series, and 2012's follow-up Bring Up the Bodies.

In a statement, her publisher said: "We are heartbroken at the death of our beloved author, Dame Hilary Mantel.

"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."

The conclusion to her trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, was published in 2020 to critical acclaim, became a number one fiction best-seller and was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2020.

The book also won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, which she first won for Wolf Hall.

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