The Mirror and The Light

12noon Temple Church
Saturday 17 September 2011

Chair: Professor Helen Taylor

We have the unique privilege of hearing Hilary Mantel read from her new work in progress, The Mirror and the Light, sequel to the great Wolf Hall.

Hilary Mantel, winner of the 2009 Man Booker prize for Wolf Hall, a penetrating novel about Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry VIII, is now writing a sequel, The Mirror and the Light. Her new novel follows Thomas Cromwell to the heights of his power, and chronicles his fall and execution in the summer of 1540.

Hilary Mantel is an acclaimed English novelist, short story writer and critic.

Her work, ranges in subject from personal memoir to historical fiction. Set in a myriad places and times – from Tudor England, eighteenth century Ireland and France, South Africa in the apartheid era, a Peak District village in the 1950s to modern-day Saudi Arabia – her talent and curiosity in evoking times past and present, and the characters inhabiting these worlds, is audacious.

Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival Appearance

Box office opens 11th July 2011

Tickets are available from the Tourist Information Centre on the High Street opposite Temple Church.

Telephone Budleigh Salterton 01395 445275
or visit www.visitbudleigh.com

Hilary Mantel, Honorary President - Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival 2012

Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival is now in its fourth flourishing year. Our inspired artistic director, Susan Ward, backed by an enthusiastic committee, has once again persuaded the literati that Budleigh is the place to be, and plans to lay before you a banquet of varied delights.

I’m not sure if I should describe myself as a delight, but I will certainly be with you to read from my new novel, Bring Up The Bodies, which will be published in May. When I read at last year’s festival, it didn’t exist; but now, my projected two novels about Thomas Cromwell have become three. I attribute it entirely to Budleigh air and Budleigh society.

I am still a newcomer, having arrived in Marine Parade on the first day of spring, 2011, and I felt honoured to be asked to take over the presidency of the festival. I succeed Sue Lawley, who will be much missed, and who brought an elegance to the role I fear I may lack. I’ll do my best.

Please come along in 2012 and be a member of our keen and kindly audience. We would like to make our festival famous, as much for the welcome we offer as for the quality of our events. Budleigh Salterton is the perfect festival town, and I am here with a new publishing contract in my hand, to convince all our guests and prospective guests of its inspirational effect.

Hilary Mantel
Honorary President
Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival