Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Man Booker Prize for Bring Up the Bodies

Hilary Mantel has won one of the world's most prestigious awards for English literature for the second time.

The Booker Prize Foundation today (October 16) named the English novelist as the winner of 2012 Man Booker Prize for Bring Up the Bodies (Fourth Estate). Interestingly, Bring up the Bodies is the sequel to Wolf Hall, which netted Mantel the Man Booker in 2009.

"Her resuscitation of Thomas Crowell—and with him the historical novel—is one of the great achievements of modern literature. There is the last volume of her trilogy still to come so her Man Booker tale may yet have a further chapter," the announcement on the Booker Prize Foundation states.

This year, 145 novels were considered for the award. The shortlist included Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books),Deborah Levy's Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber),Alison Moore's The Lighthouse (Salt),Will Self's Umbrella (Bloomsbury), andJeet Thayil's Narcopolis (Faber & Faber).

The Man Booker recognizes the novel, written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland, judged to be the best of the year. Mantel gets £50,000 (about $80,000) for the win.

Julian Barnes won last year's prize for The Sense of an Ending.

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