Ink in the Blood
A Hospital Diary
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3.8 • 41 Ratings
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- £0.99
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
During the summer after Hilary Mantel won the Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, she fell very ill. Just how ill is described in her extraordinary hospital diary, orginally published in the London Review of Books.
Originally published in the London Review of Books, this diary by the acclaimed author Hilary Mantel explores in forensic detail her loss of dignity, her determination, the concentration of the senses into an animalistic struggle to get through, and the attendant hallucinations she was plagued by during her stay in hospital.
With her health now improved, and the acknowledgement of the Man Booker prize-winning follow-up to Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies as one of our greatest works of fiction, Ink in the Blood remains a significant testament to the traumas of illness, and one of the most incredible and haunting essays published in a very long time.
Customer Reviews
Fascinating
I read this account of Hilary Mantell,s illness and slow recovery with increasing amazement and envy that someone clearly so ill is able to focus on recording her experience and use her need to write to help cope with what is happening to her body.
With no self pity she recounts the effect of drugs and her observations about her condition, the nursing staff and how they appear, the supreme effort required to eat the smallest amount of food and the sheer amount of energy needed to deal with the treatment required to aid her recovery.
A brilliant writer who even manages to turn, what must have been a truly horrendous experience into an interesting, very readable short story.