Main content

The Day Is for the Living

Art can bring the dead back to life, argues the late novelist Hilary Mantel. This 2017 lecture is being rebroadcast in a tribute to Dame Hilary.

Art can bring the dead back to life, argues the late novelist Hilary Mantel, starting with the story of her own great-grandmother. 'We sense the dead have a vital force still,' she says. 'They have something to tell us, something we need to understand. Using fiction and drama, we try to gain that understanding.' She describes how and why she began to write fiction about the past, and how her view of her trade has evolved. We cannot hear or see the past, she says, but 'we can listen and look'.

This was the first of a series of five lectures recorded in 2017, in which Dame Hilary discussed the role that history plays in our culture. How can we understand the past, she asks, and how can we convey its nature today? Above all, she believed, we must all try to respect the past amid all its strangeness and complexity.

This lecture is being rebroadcast as a tribute to Dame Hilary. It was recorded in front of an audience at Halle St Peter's in Manchester, followed by a question and answer session chaired by Sue Lawley.

Producer: Jim Frank
Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown
Editor: Hugh Levinson

Available now

42 minutes

Last on

Fri 23 Sep 2022 21:00

Broadcasts

  • Tue 13 Jun 2017 09:00
  • Sat 17 Jun 2017 22:15
  • Sat 18 Jul 2020 19:15
  • Fri 23 Sep 2022 21:00

Featured in...

What we learnt from Hilary Mantel鈥檚 Reith Lectures

We鈥檝e picked out some interesting insights from the 2017 成人快手 Reith Lectures.

The secret world of Tudor crime

A glimpse into the turbulent Tudor underworld to mark Hilary Mantel's Reith Lectures.

Are these the greatest historical novels ever written?

Daisy Buchanan reviews some of the most popular historical novels of the past few years.

Books website

Get closer to books with in-depth articles, quizzes and our picks from radio & TV.

New to the Reith Lectures? Here鈥檚 where to start

Four lectures recommended by the series producer.

Podcast