“When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.”

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.