Hilary Mantel wins second Booker prize
British author Hilary Mantel holding her book “Bring Up The Bodies.” She made history by winning her second Booker prize on October 16, 2012.
Hilary Mantel won the 2012 Man Booker Prize, becoming the first British author to win the award twice.
She won for her novel "Bring up the Bodies," also picking up £50,000 ($80,500) in prize money, according to The Huffington Post UK.
Her novel is the second installment of her trilogy chronicling the life of Thomas Cromwell, the Guardian noted. The first novel of the trilogy, "Wolf Hall," also won the Booker, making "Bring up the Bodies" the first sequel to win the Booker since the prize was established 43 years ago.
The chairman of the Booker judges, Sir Peter Stothard, said, "We are very proud to be reading English at the time she is writing. I don't think I've read any English novelist in recent years who has such complete control over the way she uses prose to do what she wants to do, like a singer or a pianist," according to the Guardian.
Mantel joked, "You wait 20 years for a Booker to come along, and then two come at once!" according to The HuffPost UK.
More on GlobalPost: Art heist in Rotterdam: Picasso, Matisse, Monet paintings stolen from Dutch museum
"Now I have to go away and write the third part of this trilogy. Believe me I have no expectations I will be standing here again!" she said. At a press conference later, Mantel said, "3 years ago I said I'd spend it on sex and drugs and rock and roll… this year I'll probably spend it on rehab!"
Mantel is the third writer to win the Booker twice, with company such as Australian author Peter Carey, who won in 1988 and 2001, and South African author J.M. Coetzee, who won in 1983 and 1999, Agence France Presse reported.
Mantel's competition this year included Indian poet Jeet Thayil, Britain's Alison Moore, Will Self, Deborah Levy and Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng, said AFP.
"When I was writing it I was very much drawn into that poisoned, fraught, emotional atmosphere of the court," Mantel told BBC's Radio 4 about writing "Bring up the Bodies, according to AFP. "I felt in danger myself. I felt a kind of moral contamination creeping over me."
More on GlobalPost: Who likes Gangnam Style? Count in Ban Ki-moon