內容簡介

期待已久的《狼廳》(Wolf Hall)《提堂》(Bring Up the Bodies)續集即將出版，這是希拉里·曼特爾(Hilary Mantel)獲得布克獎(Man Booker prize)的《狼廳》(Wolf Hall)三部曲的驚人結局。

“如果你在被砍頭的時候不能說真話，那什麼時候才能說呢?”
1536年5月，英格蘭。安妮·博林死了，被一個雇來的法國劊子手在一瞬間斬首。就在她的遺體被匆匆掩埋之時，托馬斯·克倫威爾正在與其他勝利者共進早餐。這位來自帕特尼的鐵匠之子從春天的大屠殺中平步青雲，他的權力和財富不斷攀升。而他的令人敬畏的君主亨利八世，在第三任王后珍·西摩生下他最渴望的男性繼承人並因此而死之前，與她享受著短暫的幸福。
克倫威爾是一個只有智慧可以依靠的人;他沒有顯赫家族的支持，沒有私人軍隊。儘管國家內憂外患，反叛者虎視眈眈，入侵者的威脅使亨利八世政權瀕臨崩潰，克倫威爾卻運用他強大的想像力在未來的鏡子中看到了一個嶄新的國家。 但是一個國家，或者一個人，可以像蛻皮一樣脫離過去嗎？難道死者可以不斷地挖掘自己的墳墓嗎？就像西班牙大使問克倫威爾的那個問題一樣: 國王遲早會背叛所有與他親近的人，如果輪到了你，你會怎麼做？

憑藉《鏡與光》，希拉里·曼特爾成功地結束了她從《狼廳》和《提堂》開始的三部曲。她講述了托馬斯•克倫威爾從一無所有的男孩爬到權力頂峰的最後幾年，塑造了一個捕食者同時也是獵物的形象，展現了現在和過去、皇家意志和普通人的願景的激烈衝突:一個現代國家通過碰撞，激情和勇氣走向偉大。

Preorder the long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy.

‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’
England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.
Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?
With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.