British Author Of ‘Wolf Hall’ Saga Hilary Mantel Dies At 70

LONDON (AP) – The Booker Prize-winning author of the acclaimed “Wolf Hall” trilogy has died.

Hilary Mantel was 70.

Publisher HarperCollins said Friday that Mantel died “suddenly yet peacefully” surrounded by close family and friends.

Mantel turned Tudor power politics into page-turning historical novels with her trilogy about the 16th-century English powerbroker Thomas Cromwell, the right-hand man to King Henry VIII.

Mantel won the Booker Prize twice, for “Wolf Hall” in 2009 and its sequel “Bring Up the Bodies” in 2012.

Both were adapted for the stage and television.

The publisher said Mantel was “one of the greatest English novelists of this century.”