Hilary Mantel wins inaugural Walter Scott prize

Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel has won the inaugural £25,000 (€30,000) Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction.

Her 16th century novel was praised by the judges as “compulsively readable”.

The award is the latest for the novel, which won the £50,000 (€60,000) Man Booker Prize last year and was shortlisted for the Orange prize.

The prize was awarded today at Walter Scott’s Abbotsford home in the Scottish borders, as part of the Brewin Dolphin Borders Book Festival.

The author was unable to attend due to illness.

The judges said: “For once, you can believe the hype. This is as good as the historical novel gets – immersive, constantly engaging, beautifully crafted, and compulsively readable.

“Choose any superlative: it will fail this book. Mantel’s empathy for, and assimilation of, her world is so seamless and effortless as to be almost disturbing.

“Each book on the shortlist is deserving of the prize, but Wolf Hall was for us the outright winner, in a class of its own.”

Wolf Hall was chosen from a shortlist of seven, by authors including Robert Harris, Adam Foulds and Simon Mawer.

Ms Mantel said: “I am astonished and delighted and gratified to be the first winner of the Walter Scott prize.

“Intense involvement in history was what started me writing. And now - although I hope to go on writing contemporary novels – the challenges and perplexities of historical fiction have become my preoccupation.

“And just in time, because this has been an interesting year for writers and readers of the historical novel – perhaps a turning point year.

“But much the best thing that has happened for lovers of historical fiction is the founding of this prize.

“When I first heard of it I couldn’t quite believe it; it is such a startlingly generous and imaginative gesture, an appropriately old-fashioned act of patronage of the arts. In the years to come, this prize will magnetise attention and stimulate debate.”

The Walter Scott Prize is sponsored by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, distant kinsmen of Scott.

To qualify, novels must be set 60 years ago or more.