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Published Oct 2023
432 pages
Genre: Essays
Publication Information
The final book from one of our greatest writers.
In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. "Ink is a generative fluid," she explains. "If you don't mean your words to breed consequences, don't write at all." A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.
Her subjects are wide-ranging, sharply observed, and beautifully rendered. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life popping into our conscious life; the mythic legacy of Princess Diana; the many themes that feed into her novels—revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England; and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V.S. Naipaul. She writes about her father and the man who replaced him; she writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health that she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia. Here, too, is her legendary essay "Royal Bodies," on our endless fascination with the current royal family.
From her unusual childhood to her all-consuming interest in Thomas Cromwell that grew into the Wolf Hall trilogy, A Memoir of My Former Self reveals the shape of Hilary Mantel's life in her own luminous words, through "messages from people I used to be." Filled with her singular wit and wisdom, it is essential reading from one of our greatest writers.
"[A] dazzling posthumous collection of previously published and original writings...Mantel's idiosyncratic and magisterial voice comes through on every page, carrying readers across an astonishing array of subject matter with ease. This is a treasure." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Warm, human, unfailingly engaging, this lovely collection should appeal widely. As usual, she writes like a dream." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Shrewd, humane, and deeply engaging pieces." —Kirkus Reviews
"A posthumous collection of journalism and other writings by Hilary Mantel, revealing in spectacular breadth the beloved writer's cutting wit and singular voice on books, films, the royals and her own life...Ever piercing and poignant, A Memoir of My Former Self takes us through Mantel's childhood, the joys of stationery, women's rights, Goodfellas, Marie Antoinette, and the practice of writing --- showing how a brilliant mind can make any topic, however large or small, endlessly riveting." —Booklist
"A smart, deft, meticulous, thoughtful writer, with such a grasp of the dark and spidery corners of human nature."
―Margaret Atwood
"Mantel was a queen of literature... . Her reign was long, varied, and uncontested."
―Maggie O'Farrell
This information about A Memoir of My Former Self was first featured
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Photo: John Haynes
Hilary Mantel is the two-time winner of the Booker Prize for her best-selling novels, Wolf Hall, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The final novel of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and won critical acclaim around the globe. Mantel is the author of over a dozen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, and the memoir Giving Up the Ghost.
Name Pronunciation
Hilary Mantel: man-TELL
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