Booker Prize-winning British author Hilary Mantel passes away at 70; her life in pictures

Hilary Mantel, author of the Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall saga, passed away on Friday at the age of 70. (REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo)

According to publisher HarperCollins, Mantel died “suddenly yet peacefully” surrounded by close family and friends. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

“Her beloved works are considered modern classics. She will be greatly missed,” HarperCollins said in a statement. (REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File Photo)

Mantel is recognised for reenergizing historical fiction with Wolf Hall and two sequels about the 16th-century English powerbroker Thomas Cromwell, right-hand man to King Henry VIII. (REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File Photo)

Mantel won the Booker Prize twice-- for Wolf Hall in 2009, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, in 2012. (REUTERS/Philip Toscano/pool/File Photo)

Both of her Booker Prize-winning works were later adapted for the stage and television. (REUTERS/File Photo)

The success of Wolf Hall catapulted Mantel from a critically acclaimed but modestly selling novelist into a superstar of the literary world in the modern era. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

The final instalment of the Wolf Hall saga, “The Mirror and the Light,” was published in 2020. (REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo)

The period of history in which the Wolf Hall saga was set has inspired many books, films and television series, from “A Man for All Seasons” to “The Tudors.” But Mantel managed to make the well-known story new and exciting. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)