Hilary Mantel is an English novelist whose background is explained in her award-winning memoir, titled 'Giving up the Ghost.' In 1994 I brought out a novel called “A Change of Climate”, which was shortlisted for a small prize given to books with a religious theme. It was the first time a novel had got so far with the judges, and I was surprised to be in contention. The main characters in my book were Christian missionaries, but after their God had watched unblinking while they endured trials that would shake any faith, their religion became to them no more than a habit, a set of behavioural tics, and in the absence of a belief in a benign universe they carried on grimly trying to be good because they hardly knew how to do anything else. Read the story here.