“AS Byatt has launched a vigorous attack on writers who combine biography and fiction, calling it an ‘appropriation of others’ lives and privacy’. Her broadside against authors of ‘faction’, which she describes as ‘mixtures of biography and fiction, journalism and invention’, is particularly startling given that it could be applied to her rival for this year’s Man Booker prize, Hilary Mantel, who is longlisted for her historical novel about the life of Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall.”