The continued success of Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel on the film, the app, the sequel
Congratulations on the paperback publication of Wolf Hall. You've described the novel as the book you were ‘born to write' so you must be delighted with its continued success. What were your expectations for this book when it was first published?
I thought it was my best work, but I was very uncertain about its reception. Historical fiction is often tagged as downmarket, and Wolf Hall was dealing with a period much explored in fiction and drama. I had to trust that critics and readers would jettison their prejudices, and the fact that they have makes me very hopeful about English fiction. It's no good telling authors what they ought to be writing, or insisting - as some people do - that authors ought to be like journalists, always responding to the latest crisis. You have to write the book that's within you, and to a large extent ignore fashion or what other people are doing.
You've also just been longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction for Wolf Hall. Is it difficult working on the sequel (The Mirror and the Light) when so much focus is still on Wolf Hall?
It's excruciatingly difficult, but I have to remember that the sequel is building on the success of the first book. There are some novels that can be done on the hoof - you can write a lot while you're travelling - but historical fiction of this level of intricacy demands your total concentration, and you need long stretches of time for it.
iPhone owners can now read Wolf Hall on their phones. What are your thoughts in the way technology is changing the way we approach reading fiction?
Too soon to say, really, as technology is developing all the time. Just now I can't imagine replacing printed books in my own life, but I will read ebooks when I travel. A few years ago there was a lot of debate among authors as to whether working on the screen would change the way authors wrote. But now we have all absorbed it and now we don't even notice. I guess it will be the same with reading on-screen, and we will soon come to take for granted that books are multi-media, not flat, grey and two-dimensional. It seems a natural and welcome development: what goes on in your head when you write fiction is certainly a multi-media experience. The imaginative enterprise just rolls on, the author incorporating into her daily work new ways of absorbing information - without the internet Wolf Hall would have taken ten years - and new ways of presenting material.
Since winning the Man Booker Prize, where has Wolf Hall taken you around the world?
Even before the Man Booker, Wolf Hall had a very full diary, and I have done my best to fulfil all the engagements in this country that I had already committed to. This has meant turning down some exotic invitations. This autumn I shall be going to the US for paperback publication, and then doing a series of European dates, as the translations start to appear; right have sold in 29 countries. But my main priority is the next book.
Beyond Black (longlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2004) was recently serialised by Radio 4. Has the success of Wolf Hall given your backlist title a boost?
My publisher is in the beginning of a re-jacketing enterprise, to give my titles a stronger visual identity. That's not easy when settings and subjects are so various. I hope that some of the readers who have liked Wolf Hall would try A Place of Greater Safety, my novel about the French Revolution, which I hope offers a similarly immersive experience. Beyond Black is being adapted for TV, and there may even be a stage version - a project seething with potential.
Is Wolf Hall being adapted into a film? And who would you like to see playing Cromwell?
There have been several approaches, but it seems right to hold back till Thomas Cromwell's story is complete. It's a bit early to think of casting. When I wrote the book, it unrolled in my head very much like a film, complete with its colour and texture and changes of pace and mood, so obviously I would like to see it translated to the screen, but there's no point doing it unless some of the complexity of the material can be preserved - that's where he interest lies. In other words, it must be a film about politics, not a film about frocks.
Hilary Mantel will be in conversation with Erica Wagner, Literary Editor of The Times on Wednesday 24 March 2010 at the Apple Store in Regent Street, London, This free event starts at 7pm.
