Mantel named Booker prize winner

They say that the novel hailed as the bookmaker's favourite is inevitably doomed to come a cropper on judgement night of the Man Booker Prize.

But Hilary Mantel proved the doubters wrong, and the bookies right. Wolf Hall, her rip-roaring historical tome about Thomas Cromwell, adviser to Henry VIII, had been the clear frontrunner for weeks and was a deserving winner of the 50,000 pounds (NZ$68,000) prize.

Weighing in at over 650 pages, it proved so popular with the public that it threatened Dan Brown's pole position on one bestseller list. The judges praised it as a commercial success that could also garner critical recognition on a powerhouse shortlist that included a former Booker winner, AS Byatt, and the twice Booker and Nobel Prize recipient, JM Coetzee. Not since Yann Martel's Life of Pi won the prize in 2002 had a frontrunner claimed such a bold victory.

The book, which has sold 48,000 copies since its publication in Britain in April, follows Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith who rose through the ranks to become the architect of the Tudor Reformation.

Mantel, who spent years researching the book and was interrupted by an ongoing and undiagnosed illness, is now planning to write a sequel which covers the rest of Cromwell's life.

James Naughtie, chair of the prize's judges, praised Mantel's work for being surprisingly contemporary despite its historical roots in the Tudor revolution of the 1530s.

"Our decision was based on the sheer bigness of the book; the boldness of its narrative; its scene-setting; the extraordinary way Hilary Mantel created a contemporary novel that happens to be in the 16th century," he said.

But he made clear that Mantel had faced formidable contenders during the three-hour decision-making process. "It was like looking at an Alpine landscape and looking for a peak that was just a little bit higher. That does not mean that the other vistas will not be remembered in another 100 years," he said.

He also noted that many of this year's choices had proved to be runaway commercial successes, which he put down to the "Me Cheeta effect" n referring to the celebrated spoof autobiography of a chimpanzee turned Hollywood celebrity which also made the longlist.

"What we have seen is that sales of longlisted and shortlisted works have rocketed. It has a lot to do with quality ... I call it the Me Cheeta effect," he said. Amazon said Mantel's book had accounted for 45 per cent of the total sales of shortlisted titles since the nominees were announced at the beginning of September.

"The title peaked at number two in our bestsellers list and, for a short period of time, looked like it might displace Dan Brown's new novel at the top of the chart," said a spokeswoman.

- THE INDEPENDENT