Article: The keys to the kingdom

Man Booker winner Hilary Mantel has injected new life into Tudor turmoils but, as Boyd Tonkin discovers, she has first-hand experience of living in the shadow of arbitrary power

When Hilary Mantel lived for four years in Saudi Arabia during the 1980s, reading between the lines became an everyday art. Official media told no sort of truth. "The Jeddah papers were just wonderful. They were fiction," she remembers. On television, two high-status gentlemen would be shown "shaking hands and then sitting down for a parley. 'Prince So-and-So lauds Prince So-and-So.' They loved this word 'lauds'. And you would see them in dumb-show, lauding each other."

Long before Mantel pleased pundits and punters ...

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