Category Archives: Writers

Very sad news that Man Booker Prize winning author Dame Hilary Mantel has died aged 70, according to her publisher. Her Wolf Hall trilogy, charting the fortunes of Thomas Cromwell, has been serialised by the BBC.

Over the years she has produced numerous books, historical fiction, reviewed films, books and papers, for newspapers and TV. The sequel to ‘Wolf Hall’, ‘Bringing Up the Bodies‘ won her the 2012 Costa Book of the Year and the 2012 Booker Prize. She became the first British writer and the first woman to win the Booker more than once. Her books were adapted into plays by the RSC and produced as a mini-series by BBC. The final book The Mirror & the Light was published in 2020.

After several weeks if not months of prevarication, I am, hopefully, getting it together.

Having attempted to struggle through a 6 week futurelearn course on ‘Reading Macondo’, which examines the work of Gabriel García Márquez’, I finally had to admit defeat this time round. Sadly, at least for those of us with only a smattering of any language other than English, the videos are all in Spanish. Even though the transcripts are bilingual it proved very hard work. Consequently I got too far behind.

I’m now in a more comfortable arena studying another furturelearn course ‘William Wordsworth: Poetry, People & Place’. This is proving no less fascinating than Macondo (which I will eventually return to). I heartily recommend anyone to look at the range of futurelearn courses – not restricted to literature by any means.

Now I’ve broken out of the mould I intend to continue this blog – at least weekly – without interruption!