Hilary Mantel, author of wolf hall and one of the most important contemporary English novelists, died “suddenly but peacefully”, this Thursday, at the age of 70, “surrounded by her closest family and friends”, confirmed HarperCollins.

In a statement, the publisher called the writer “one of the great English novelists of this century.” “Her beloved works of his are considered modern classics. We will miss you.”

The agent who accompanied her throughout her career, Ben Hamilton, declared that it was a great privilege to work with the author, highlighting her wisdom and the stoic way in which she dealt with her health problems. Mantel was diagnosed with an extreme form of endometriosis, a chronic disease, in the 1980s. This disease affects an estimated one in ten women, but diagnosis is often delayed. That’s what happened to the writer.

“Her wisdom, stylistic audacity, creative ambition and phenomenal historical insight make her one of the great novelists of our time,” Hamilton said, quoted by The Telegraph. “There was always an aura around her of being out of this world, as she saw and felt things that we mere mortals don’t usually see, but when she realized that confrontation was necessary, she went into battle without fear. And all this in the context of chronic health problems, which she dealt with so stoically.”

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Her publisher, Nicholas Pearson, also noted the unique way in which Mantel looked at the world around her. “Hilary had a unique vision of the world: she broke it down and revealed how it worked in her historical and contemporary novels: each book is an unforgettable web of luminous phrases, unforgettable characters and extraordinary perspectives,” she said, according to The Telegraph. “She seemed to know everything.”

Describing the writer as kind and generous, Pearson confessed that he had been with her for the past month and was talking about a new romance. “It is unbearable to think that we will never again have the pleasure of reading your words. What we have is a body of work that will be read for generations. We have to be thankful for that. I will miss you.”

Hilary Mantel when she received the first Booker Prize, for wolf hall (Zak Hussein/PA Images via Getty Images)

“Fierce, fabulous and fearless”: “We lost a genius”

Politicians and writers alike paid tribute to Mantel. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon he wrote that it is “impossible to exaggerate the importance of the literary legacy left by Hilary Mantel. Your brilliant trilogy wolf hall It was the golden crown of an extraordinary body of work.”

Maggie O’Farell, author of ham, stated that the United Kingdom lost “another monarch” with the death of the writer. “Mantel was the queen of letters and her reign was, like that of Elizabeth II, long, varied and undeniable. It leaves a huge void that cannot be filled, a deep sense of loss for the reading public and an awe-inspiring piece of work,” she told The Guardian, describing Mantel as “fierce, fabulous and brave” as an author. On Twitter, JK Rowling he wrote simply: “We have lost a genius”.

Hilary Mantel in 2012, when she won the Booker Prize for the second book in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, lift the bodies (the black book, in the Portuguese translation) (Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images)

Hilary Mantel was born on July 6, 1952, in Glossop, England. She graduated in Law from the University of Sheffield, she worked as a social worker. After marrying geologist Gerald McEwen in September 1972, the couple moved to Botswana, where they lived for five years, and then to Saudi Arabia, where they stayed for four, before returning to the UK for good in the mid-1980s.

The author of 12 novels and two collections of short stories, Mantel is best known for the trilogy about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, minister to Henry VIII, which began in 2009 with wolf hall. The saga continued in 2012 with The black book and was completed in 2020 with The mirror and the light. The trilogy is published in Portugal by Editorial Presença.

“The mirror and the light” and the demanding ambition of Hilary Mantel

At the time of publication of wolf hall, literary critic Christopher Taylor, who predicted the book would win the Booker Prize, described it as “letterally written but neat and tidy”, “solidly imagined yet hauntingly resonant and, at times, very funny”. “It is unlike anything in contemporary British fiction,” he declared, noting that the writer had turned Thomas Cromwell into a “modern rationalist in Renaissance clothes.”

Considered one of the great English writers of the 21st century, Mantel won the Booker Prize twice, with the first two volumes of the Cromwell trilogy. In 2018 he was a finalist for the Golden Booker, an award created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the English literary award, with wolf hallconsidered by The Guardian the best book of the 21st century.

“The surface details are sensual, vividly immediate, the language fresh as a freshly painted picture; but his exploration of power, fate and fortune is also deeply thought through and in constant dialogue with our times as we are shaped and created by the past. In this book we have, as the author intended, “a sense of history that listens and speaks to itself,” the newspaper said at the time.

She was twice awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to literature.