Two-time winner, previously a favourite to win with the third novel in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, says books ‘surf on the tide of the times’
Two-time Booker prize winner Hilary Mantel has said that she is “disappointed” but “freed” after not making this year’s shortlist, congratulating the six authors now in competition for the £50,000 prize.
Mantel, who won the prize for the first two novels in her historical trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, had been tipped to win a third time for the final volume, The Mirror and the Light. But judges for this year’s prize instead selected four debuts, by Diane Cook, Avni Doshi, Douglas Stuart and Brandon Taylor alongside new novels from Tsitsi Dangarembga and Maaza Mengiste. After announcing the lineup, judge and novelist Lee Child said The Mirror and the Light was “an absolutely wonderful novel, there’s no question about it”, but “as good as it was, there were some books which were better”.
