What I Have Learnt From Hilary Mantel About Writing Historical Novels,
by Eva Stachniak

Hilary Mantel – whose two latest novels won the Booker Prize – summarizes her position on writing historical fiction in the introduction to A Place of Greater Safety, her sprawling novel of the French Revolution:

Historical accounts are not always reliable. They can often be contradictory or scarce and thus open to different interpretations. Every contradiction a historical novelist encounters in their research becomes a choice to be made, and choices lead to varying interpretations.....

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