What is Historical Fiction?

The saying goes, a historian tells you what happened but a novelist tells you how it felt. I’m always interrogating myself about the rights and wrongs of setting novels in the past and particularly around such a sensitive part of the past as WW2 Germany. So I found this long, perceptive article by Hilary Mantel about why she writes historical fiction totally fascinating.   https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/03/hilary-mantel-why-i-became-a-historical-novelist