Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall is the first volume of the Tudor Trilogy by the British writer Hilary Mantel and won the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2009. The novel turns its lens on England in the early sixteenth century: Henry VIII and Queen Catherine have no male heir for years, the king's divorce case drags on unresolved, the conflict between the Roman Curia and the Church of England grows sharper, and the Reformation is gathering. The book unfolds from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, son of a blacksmith, telling how he grows from a boy brutalized by violence into the most trusted adviser of Cardinal Wolsey, and then, after Wolsey's fall and sudden death, joins Henry VIII's service with extraordinary judgment and astonishing drive, playing a key role in the king's divorce from the queen. The novel runs from 1520s London to 1535, as major events unfold in turn: Catherine's deposition, Anne Boleyn's rise to queenship, and Thomas More's execution for refusing to accept the Act of Supremacy; Cromwell maneuvers among monarch, church, and nobility, finally reaching the pinnacle of power. Through present-tense narration, abundant interior monologue, and flashbacks, the author reshapes the one-dimensional "powerful minister" of the sources into a meticulous man who knows several languages, cold-blooded yet attentive to family and friends. Not a single line directly says "what history will bring," yet the shadow of fate lies everywhere. This is a monumental work depicting Tudor politics and human nature, and a representative of contemporary English historical fiction.