Dame Hilary Mary Mantel, DBE FRSL (/mænˈtɛl/ man-TEL; born Thompson, 6 July 1952), is an English writer whose work includes personal memoirs, short stories, and historical fiction.
To my astonishment, when Wolf Hall came out, people asked if I made it up - [Thomas More] burning of heretics. It was well documented. And he was proud of it! The Brits love lost causes.
For myself, the only way I know how to make a book is to construct it like a collage: a bit of dialogue here, a scrap of narrative, an isolated description of a common object, an elaborate running metaphor which threads between the sequences and holds different narrative lines together.
The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.
I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished.