“A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old. Your undivided church has liked nothing better than persecuting its own members, burning them and hacking them apart when they stood by their own conscience, slashing their bellies open and feeding their guts to dogs.”

British writer

Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer best known for historical fiction, as well as memoir and short stories. Her work ranged across several forms, and she published from the mid-1980s onward. Her first novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, appeared in 1985. Over her career she wrote 12 novels, two short story collections, a memoir, and many articles and opinion pieces.