In my dreams of Europe, I had found the keys to the gate of an unknown city. For the constant and passionate imagination, no documents or passes are needed. It did not seem to me that I was writing of dead people or events that were distant and frozen. I was working at a transformative moment in the history of Europe. … By writing a novel one performs a revolutionary act. A novel is an act of hope. It allows us to imagine that things may be other than they are.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 988