Hilary Mantel is no stranger to the Man Booker Prize.
She has now won it twice for the first two instalments in her historical trilogy, been longlisted three times and was a judge herself in 1990.
The 60-year-old was born in Derbyshire and studied law at the London School of Economics and Sheffield University before working as a social worker.
She has said her decision to become a writer was inspired by the end of her parents' marriage and personal illness.
She told Mslexia: "In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a career - writing - that could accommodate being ill."
Mantel gave up her job and started writing the book that 15 years later would become her 1992 work, A Place of Greater Safety.
The novel is also a historical epic - based on the lives of the leading lights of the French Revolution.
She has lived for almost a decade in Botswana and Saudi Arabia before returning to Britain in the 1980s.
Her work steadily increased in popularity and critical acclaim and she was awarded the CBE in 2006.
She now lives in Budleigh Salterton on the Devon coast where she is currently working on the final part of the trilogy - said to be called The Mirror and the Light.
