A relation of past events brings you up against events and mentalities that, should you choose to describe them, would bring you to the borders of what your readers could bear. The danger you have to negotiate is not the dimpled coyness of the past—it is its obscenity. —Hilary Mantel, the Guardian, Saturday 17 October 2009

If you read Nicola Griffith’s new historical novel Hild, you’ll learn a lot about life

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