Hilary Mantel remembered: ‘She was the queen of literature’ | Hilary Mantel | The Guardian

Margaret Atwood: ‘She had a grasp of the dark and spidery corners of human nature'

Canadian author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, and twice Booker winner

I was shocked and saddened to hear of Hilary Mantel's death. It was always a pleasure to read such a smart, deft, meticulous, thoughtful writer, and one with such a grasp of the dark and spidery corners of human nature - and a pleasure to review her too, which I did both early and late. A Place of Greater Safety was an eye-opener about the French Revolution, and the Cromwell trilogy was a well-known stunner. She never shied away from the difficult folks, and doled out a tad of redemption for even the most hardened cases. What might she have written next? I don't know, but I will miss it.