Wolf Hall wins the Walter Scott prize

Man Booker Prize winner picks up another accolade

21 June 2010

Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall, winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009, has won the inaugural £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. The prize, for novels set at least 60 years in the past, was awarded during the Brewin Dolphin Borders Book Festival.

Judges praised Wolf Hall as "compulsively readable" at a ceremony at Sir Walter Scott's home in Abbotsford, Scottish Borders. Due to illness, Mantel was unable to attend the award ceremony, but on winning the prize said: "This has been an interesting year for writers and readers of the historical novel - perhaps a turning point."

The Walter Scott Prize, sponsored by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch - distant descendants of Scott, was launched with support from EventScotland. The prize's definition of "historical" is when events described take place at least 60 years before publication, and so stand outside personal experience of the author. The definition comes from Scott's subtitle for Waverley: "Tis Sixty Years Since".

The other shortlisted authors included Adam Foulds and Simon Mawer - both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. The judges were Elizabeth Buccleuch, Elizabeth Laird, Allan Massie, David Robinson, and Gavin Wallace. Judges said that Wolf Hall was "in a class of its own" adding that the novel "This is as good as the historical novel gets - immersive, constantly engaging, beautifully crafted, and compulsively readable," they added.

Since winning the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, Mantel's Wolf Hall has also been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards 2009 and the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010. 

The Man Booker Prize Fiction at its finest