(adds latest odds from Ladbrokes)
By Mike Collett-White
LONDON Oct 12 (Reuters) – Hilary Mantel could become the
first woman to win the coveted Man Booker Prize for fiction
twice with her historical novel “Bring Up the Bodies”, the
bookmakers’ favourite alongside Will Self’s “Umbrella”.
The annual literary award to an author from the
Commonwealth, Zimbabwe or Ireland will be handed out at a glitzy
dinner in London on Tuesday, and the build-up this year has been
dominated by 60-year-old Mantel.
She won the Booker in 2009 with “Wolf Hall”, her acclaimed
650-page historical novel charting Thomas Cromwell’s rise to
power in King Henry VIII’s court, and is in contention again for
the sequel.
Were she to win, she would become not only the first female
the “do the double” but also the first British writer. South
Africa-born J.M. Coetzee and Australian Peter Carey have won the
prize twice.
“There has been discussion, I know, about the pros and cons
of Mantel advancing so far in the prize again so soon,” said
Peter Stothard, chair of the Man Booker judging panel and editor
of the Times Literary Supplement.
“The judges noted Mantel’s even greater mastery of method
now,” he added.
Mantel could be back in the frame yet again in 2015, when
the third and final instalment of her Cromwell trilogy, “The
Mirror and the Light”, is due to hit the shelves.
Continued…
