British Novelist Hilary Mantel Wins Costa Award

Posted on the 30 January 2013 by Azharnadeem

Hilary Mantel won Britain’s Costa Book Award on Tuesday for her novel “Bring Up The Bodies”, which is the second part of a planned trilogy about the story of Thomas Cromwell under the reign of Henry VIII.

With this the 60-year-old became the first author ever to win the Costa Book Award and Man Booker Prize in the same year.

Mantel vanquished her four other contesters, representing different categories of popular literature.

“I’m happy and I shall make it my business to try to write more books that will be worth more prizes,” said Mantel after scooping the prize worth £30,000.

“Sometimes it feels like it’s getting away from me, yet at the same time I’m still contained within it because I have the third book to write,” she added. “I’m excited about it I want to know what happens, I want to know what I’ll say.”

The other four shortlisted writers received £5,000 each apiece.

Mantel in October last year scripted the literary history by becoming the first British author to win two Booker Prize awards for fiction, one of the most prestigious awards in English-language literature.