Hilary Mantel: Booker Prize winner with visions of ghosts since childhood hears voices of her characters, who are more real to her than actual people

“Once those voices begin, it’s like having the radio on in the background for 15 years,” she said. “It never actually fades. It runs continuously with whatever else you’re doing, and that means you’re never off duty to the book, you never stop working on it. You fall asleep with it, you wake up with it. There’s a point where you’re living with these people and only with them. They’re more real and solid to you than actual people in your life.”

Ever since Mantel was a child, she’s been prone to visions of ghosts and spirits. “I am used to ‘seeing’ things that aren’t there” (1).

The New York Times article mentions the above only in passing, because multiple personality trait is common among fiction writers.

1. Alexandra Alter. “For Hilary Mantel, There’s No Time Like the Past.” New York Times, March 7, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/books/hilary-mantel-mirror-and-the-light-thomas-cromwell.html