Man Booker Prize Winner Announced

Hilary Mantel proudly holds her award-winning book. (Photo via AP)

The 2012 Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been awarded to Hilary Mantel for her title Bring Up the Bodies announced at London’s Guildhall during a live telecast by BBC.

Mantel is the first woman and the first British author to win the prize twice, reports BBC News. The story revolves around Thomas Cromwell, an adviser to King Henry VIII and the downfall of Anne Boleyn. She won the award in 2009 for Wolf Hall, the prequel to her recent win. She is the only author to take home a prize for a sequel. She has a third installment, The Mirror and the Light, in the queue to round out the trilogy.

“Hilary Mantel has rewritten the rules for historical fiction,” said Sir Peter Stothard, chairman of the judges, reports BBC.

The literary prize is awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in English, by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000 which is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the growth in readership which tends to follow based on past success stories.

Does this make you want to read Bring up the Bodies?