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Hilary Mantel: First British Booker Prize winner in five years
Hilary Mantel became the first British writer to win the £50,000 Man Booker Prize since Alan Hollinghurst won the award for The Line of Beauty five years ago, in 2004. Mantel’s historical epic, Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell, adviser to Henry VIII, had been the popular favourite to win the award despite competition from strong…
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Anthony Burgess on Malaysia
Malaysia celebrated its 52nd independence anniversary recently. So how much has it changed since Anthony Burgess wrote about it in The Malayan Trilogy? The book is based on his experiences as an education officer in Malaysia in the 1950s. In his introduction to The Malayan Trilogy, he writes: “The Malays resented Chinese wealth and were…
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