about ken follett

KEN
FOLLETT
INFORMATION PACK
CONTENTS
About Ken Follett
2
Chronology and Bibliography
3
Best-seller Listings
4
Awards, Honours & Accolades
5
Reviews
7
A Conversation with Ken Follett
8
Detailed Biography
13
Film and TV
16
Image Gallery
18
Digital versions of the text and images in this information pack are available to
download from
www.Ken-Follett.com/media
For more information please contact
<[email protected]>
or see
www.Ken-Follett.com
Facebook.com/KenFollettAuthor
@KMFollett
Youtube.com/KenFollettAuthor
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
1
ABOUT KEN FOLLETT
Ken Follett is one of the world’s most successful authors. Over 150 million copies of
the twenty-nine books he has written have been sold worldwide.
The Century Trilogy project, which tells the history of the twentieth century through
the eyes of five linked families: one American; one English; one German; one
Russian and one Welsh, is Ken’s most ambitious yet.
The first book of the trilogy, Fall of Giants, focuses on the First World War and the
Russian Revolution. It was published worldwide in September 2010 and
immediately went to number one on Bestseller Lists in the United States, Spain,
Italy, Germany and France. Fall of Giants also won the Que Leer Prize in Spain and
the Libri Golden Book Award in Hungary.
The second book, Winter of the World, covers the Second World War and its
aftermath. It was published in eleven languages in September 2012 and went to
number one on Bestseller Lists in the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada
and Denmark.
The final book of the trilogy, Edge of Eternity, deals with the Cold War and the social and economic upheavals of
the sixth; seventh and eighth decades of the most turbulent and bloody century on the history of our planet. This
is due to be published, on September 16th 2014.
Ken’s greatest, and most unexpected, success was his medieval epic about the building of a cathedral called
Pillars of the Earth. This was published in 1989 to great critical acclaim and it reached number one on Bestseller
Lists around the world. Its sequel, World Without End, published in 2008, proved equally popular and Ken’s name
was, once again, at the top of the world’s Bestseller Lists.
Ken’s other bestselling titles are: Eye of the Needle, The Key to Rebecca, The Man from St. Petersburg, Lie Down
with Lions, Code to Zero, Jackdaws, Hornet Flight, and Whiteout.
Ken lives in Hertfordshire England with his wife Barbara, the former Labour Member of Parliament for Stevenage.
They have five children; six grandchildren and three Labradors between them.
KEN FOLLETT`S BOOKS ARE PUBLISHED IN 48 COUNTRIES :
Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China (PRC), Croatia, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan,
Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand,
Turkey, The United Kingdom, The United States and Uruguay.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
2
CHRONOLOGY & BIBLIOGRAPHY
1949 — Born on 5th June in Cardiff to Martin and Lavinia Follett.
1968 — Marries Mary Elson. Their son, Emanuele, is born.
1970 — Graduates from University College, London with B.A. in Philosophy.
1971 — Becomes a Reporter on The South Wales Echo.
1973 — Daughter, Marie Claire, is born. Becomes a Reporter on the Evening News in London.
1974 — Becomes Deputy Manager Director at Everest Books, London.
1974 —Publishes: The Big Needle and The Big Black under pseudonym Symon Myles.
1975 — Publishes The Big Hit by as Symon Myles and The Shakeout as Ken Follett.
1976 — Publishes The Modigliani Scandal as Zachary Stone; The Mystery Hideout as Ken Follett;
The Power Twins as Martin Martinsen and Amok: King of Legend as Bernard L. Ross.
1977 — Publishes Paper Money as Zachary Stone.
1978 — Publishes Capricorn One as Bernard L. Ross and Eye of the Needle as Ken Follett.
1979 — Publishes Triple.
1980 — Publishes The Key to Rebecca.
1982 — Publishes The Man From St. Petersburg.
1983 — Publishes On the Wings of Eagles.
1985 — Marries Barbara Broer (née Hubbard). Acquires three-stepchildren, Jann; Kim & Adam.
1986 — Publishes Lie Down With Lions.
1989 — Publishes The Pillars of the Earth.
1991 — Publishes Night Over Water.
1993 — Publishes A Dangerous Fortune.
1995 — Publishes A Place Called Freedom.
1996 — Publishes The Third Twin.
1998 — Publishes The Hammer of Eden.
2000 — Publishes Code to Zero.
2001 — Publishes Jackdaws.
2002 — Publishes Hornet Flight.
2004 — Publishes Whiteout.
2008 — Publishes World Without End.
2010 — Publishes Fall of Giants.
2012 — Publishes Winter of the World.
2014 — Publishes Edge of Eternity.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
3
BEST-SELLER LISTINGS
Winter of the World (2012)

Debuted at #1 on The New York Times’ hardcover and e-book fiction lists.

#1 in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Fall of Giants (2010)

Debuted at #1 on The New York Times’ hardcover fiction list.

Debuted at #1 in Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

#1 in Argentina, Bulgaria, Denmark, New Zealand and Uruguay.
World Without End (2007)

#1 on The New York Times bestseller list.

Remained on this list for 6 months.

#1 in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain
the United Kingdom and the United States.

#1 on the lists of The Sunday Times, Entertainment Weekly,
Publishers Weekly and The Wall Street Journal.

Was the fastest-selling book ever published in the Spanish language.
The Pillars of the Earth (1989)

Was on The New York Times bestseller list for eighteen weeks.

#1 in Canada, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Remained on the German best seller list for six years.

Republished in 2008, it was #1 on The New York Times trade Paperback list.
Whiteout (2007)

Topped the bestseller lists in Germany (April 2007).
Code to Zero (2000)

#1 on bestseller lists in Germany, Italy and the USA (2000).
The Key to Rebecca (1980)

#1 on the bestseller lists in the USA (1980).
Eye of the Needle (1978)

#1 on The New York Times bestseller list (June 1978).
Ken Follett’s other bestseller listed titles include:
A Dangerous Fortune; A Place Called Freedom; Hammer of Eden; Hornet Flight; Jackdaws; Lie Down with Lions; Night Over Water; On Wings of Eagles; Paper Money; The
Modigliani Scandal; The Man from St Petersburg; The Third Twin; Triple.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
4
AWARDS
 2013 Ken is made a Grand Master at the Edgar Awards in New York
 2012 Winter of the World wins the Qué Leer Prize for Best Translated Book of that year in Spain.
 2010 Fall of Giants wins the Libri Golden Book Award for Best Fiction Title in Hungary that year.
 2010 Ken is made a Grand Master at Thrillerfest V in New York.
 2008 Ken wins the Olaguibel Prize for contributing to the promotion and awareness of architecture.
 2008 Ken is made an Honorary Doctor of Literature by The University of Exeter.
 2007 Ken is made an Honorary Doctor of Literature by The University of Glamorgan.
 2007 Ken is made an Honorary Doctor of Literature by Saginaw Valley State University.
 2003 Jackdaws wins the Corine Publishing Prize in Bavaria.
 1999 Hammer of Eden wins the Premio Bancarella Literary Prize in Italy.
 1979 Eye of the Needle wins the Edgar Best Novel Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Ken with his Grand Master Award in 2013
Receiving the Grand Master award at
Thrillerfest V in June 2010
HONOURS & ACCOLADES

2008 Ken was named one of the two most popular writers in the world by book trade magazines The
Bookseller, Publishers Weekly & France’s Livres Hebdo.

2007 Pillars of the Earth was selected by Oprah Winfrey as her 60th Book Club Choice in November that year.
It was the Club’s fastest selling book ever.

The Pillars of the Earth and Eye of the Needle are ranked at 64th and 89th respectively on The 101 Bestselling Books of All Time list atRanker.com.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
5
 2013 Ken is named as one of the 25 Most Powerful Authors of the year by The Hollywood Reporter.
 2013 World Without End is voted Best Foreign Novel by Club Literario Creatio in Spain.
 2011 Ken is made a Fellow of The Welsh Academy.
Exploring Vitoria-Gastiez
Elected a Fellow of the Welsh Academy
 2011 The Pillars of the Earth is the most popular print novel in an official survey of reading habits in Spain.
 2011 Fall of Giants is the third most popular novel print novel in an official survey of reading habits in Spain.
 2010 Fall of Giants is Number 1 on The Goodreads ‘Best Historical Fiction’ awards.
 2009 The Pillars of the Earth is Number 2 on The Times of London’s list of the 60 best-loved novels published
in English since 1949.
 2009 World without End is Number 24 on The Times of London’s list of the 60 best-loved novels published in
English since 1949.
 2008 Ken is honoured when a life size statue of him is unveiled outside the Cathedral in Vitoria, Spain.
Ken with his statue in Vitoria
Barbara with Ken’s Statue
 2008 Ken is named as most-read author and the second most purchased author in Spain.
 2006 The Pillars of the Earth is voted the third-most popular book in Germany by ZDF TV viewers.
 2003 The Pillars of the Earth was chosen as one of Britain’s best-loved books by the BBC’s “The Big Read”.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
6
REVIEWS
“He meticulously reconstructs an era and leads us through the follies and occasional heroics of its protagonists real
and imaginary… masterly in conveying so much drama and historical information so vividly… grippingly told, and
readable to the end.” — Roger Boylan in The New York Times on Fall of Giants
“Fall of Giants is classic Follett...It’s a book that will suck you in, consume you for days or weeks...then let you out
the other side both entertained and educated. — Craig Wilson in USA Today on Fall of Giants
“Follett is a master craftsman. He fills his pages with fascinating characters and then uses the great events of this
time to make an exciting plot. He succeeds in every way possible.” — Jackie K. Cooper in The Huffington Post
on Winter of the World
“Follett takes you to a time long past with brio and razor-sharp storytelling. An epic tale in which you will lose
yourself.” — The Denver Post on World Without End
“This is gasp-a-minute stuff by a vintage practitioner of terror.” — Carla McKay, Daily Mail on Whiteout
“Follett is a master.” — Washington Post
“An extraordinary epic buttressed by suspense… romance, rivalry and spectacle… a monumental masterpiece…
a towering triumph from a major talent!” — ALA Booklist on The Pillars of the Earth
“A seesaw of tension… impeccable pacing… action, intrigue, violence and passion… a novel that entertains,
instructs and satisfies on a grand scale!” — Publishers Weekly on The Pillars of the Earth
“Everyone likes a page-turner, and Follett is the best.” — Philadelphia Inquirer on Whiteout
“A deadly romantic triangle, a clandestine mission with global stakes, an exotic location, a plot as gripping and
ingenious as ‘Eye of the Needle’… engineered to perfection with breathless acceleration. I couldn’t put it down!”
— Los Angeles Times on Lie Down With Lions
“A marvellous, rare, terrific read… A superb edge-of-the-seat true story that is as exciting as a novel!” — USA Today on On Wings of Eagles
“One of the liveliest thrillers of the year… Follett is a master of crafty ploy and incredible detail… a sizzling
narrative!” — Time Magazine on Triple
“A terrific page-turner… careening thrills… telling historical detail… genuine surprises” — Los Angeles Times on
A Dangerous Fortune
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
7
IN HIS OWN
WORDS
A Conversation
with Ken
Where did the idea for the Century Trilogy come from?
I was absolutely thrilled by the reaction of readers to World Without End, and was looking to write something they’d like
just as much. I wanted to recapture the magic of that book but, fond as I am of the Middle Ages, didn’t want to become
a “medieval writer”. At some point, in trying to figure out how to do that, I thought of the twentieth century—the most
dramatic and bloodthirsty century in the history of the human race; an ongoing drama of war against oppressive
regimes and of people struggling for independence. It’s a thrilling story and it’s our story, one that has touched all of us
either directly or through our parents and grandparents
And what is to come in the third volume?
Edge of Eternity begins in 1961, with the shock of the overnight appearance of the Berlin Wall. The main characters
are the grand children of the principals in Fall of Giants. They are involved in the Cuban missile crisis; the
assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy; Swinging London; and Vietnam. They
take part in the anti-communist revolutions of the nineteen-eighties, and the story ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989.
Why, after Pillars of the Earth, a Medieval saga, have you chosen to face such a grand and
complex issue, the 20th Century?
This is the most dramatic century in the history of the human race, with two great wars and a thermonuclear standoff.
Also, it’s the century when most of my readers were born. So this is the story of all of us: who we are and where we
come from. What has been the hardest challenge in order to deal with last century turbulences and, at the same time,
to show life in many sets of locations and characters’ intimate lives. As always, the challenge is to show history as part
of the everyday lives of ordinary men and women.
For many other writers, they could have thought that with the great success you already
gathered with previous books that they had nothing to prove, and be comfortable working
in a smaller project. But with your new The Century Trilogy, is this your most ambitious project so far? Did you have the feeling you still have something to show to the world, a bigger
“magna opus” than Pillars of the Earth?
Yes, after writing World Without End, I was very pleased with the way readers responded, it was a huge success all
over the world and I wanted to do that all over again. But you are quite right to say that The Trilogy is more ambitious
than anything I have done previously, and when I thought about it, I thought it was quite a torturing project… and I
thought “Am I good enough? Am I capable of doing this?” But then I thought “You have to try it”.
You wrote ten books before having a big success – did you contemplate giving up?
I was lucky with my early books – they weren’t best-sellers but I got published. I got some money from them. I wasn’t
discouraged but I was disappointed they weren’t huge best-sellers but then again they were published and some
people seemed to like them.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
8
CONTINUED
Describe a typical day spent writing. Do you have any
unusual writing habits?
I like to start early, usually at 7 a.m., and with breaks for the usual chores,
such as shaving and lunch, I work until about 5 p.m. I do e-mails and phone
calls for an hour. Then I like to have a glass of champagne. I don’t have any
superstitions but I started out writing in a newsroom as a journalist and you
get to the stage where you can write and concentrate without needing quiet.
In a newsroom, you can’t say: ‘Can you please be quiet because I’m
trying to write.’ I’m not easily distracted.
What compelled you, when you were still a newspaper
journalist, to write your first novel?
The spur was a financial crisis. My car broke down, and I couldn’t afford to
get it fixed. And another journalist at the newspaper had written a thriller
and the advance he got from the publisher was £200, which was pretty
much exactly the amount of money I needed to get my car fixed. I did not
figure that out until life began to show me I was a so-so newspaper
reporter, and as a novelist I might have something special.
Do you have any rules of thumb?
If there’s a way to make it better, you have to do it. That may sound so obvious that it’s stupid, but actually, when
you’ve written something and you think it’s quite good, and you realize or somebody helps you realize that it could be
better, it does take quite an effort of will to tear it up and go back and do it again. And forcing myself to do that, I think,
has been really important in my career. If I had published my first drafts, I don’t think I’d be getting this wonderful
[ThrillerMaster] award. And I think to myself, now, about the millions of people who enjoyed the last book and are
looking forward to the next one. And I think, what if I disappoint them? That would be terrible.
And so then if I can see that this scene is OK, but look, here’s a way to do it better, I’ve got to do it.
What do you think are the really essential elements to a thriller? When you’re developing
that outline, what has to be in there?
Well, I always say thrillers are about people in danger. And while it’s easy enough to think up a dangerous situation to
put the people in, the challenge then is to draw that out for 100,000 words in such a way that the danger is constantly
present, that the story is still developing internally. There’s a rule of thumb that says every four to six pages the story
should turn. If you leave it longer than that, people start to get bored. If it’s shorter than that, it’s too frenetic. And a
story turn is anything that changes the situation for the characters, so it could be quite minor—somebody telling a little
lie—but it’s a story turn. And so the challenge for me is not thinking of dangerous situations to put the people in, that’s
easy. The challenge is then drawing out that suspense, their responses to it, their interactions with one another, their
interactions with the bad guys, and making that into a consistent drama that lasts 100,000 words.
Which current authors do you admire and do you have any favourite books or authors?
Lee Child is the best thriller writer now. He’s got the art of suspense down to a T – two pages into a Jack Reacher
story and you’re hooked. My favourite author is Edith Wharton, who writes about uptight people whose lives are upset
by sexual passion.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
9
CONTINUED
Some writers live in dread of their books being turned into films
or miniseries. Have you enjoyed the experience?
Seeing good actors giving good performances bringing life to characters I've
invented and speaking some of the lines I've written is a huge thrill. When it all goes
well it’s great. When it goes badly you sort of cringe when you see what’s on the
screen. But you have to take that risk. I'm pleased and proud that some of my
stories have made good film and TV. It confirms the strength of the story that it can
be transformed from one medium to another. So despite the occasional catastrophe
I’m basically pleased with what’s been done.
Today’s genre writers are challenged to play within the conventions of a genre, while also
offering readers something unique. How can aspiring writers find a way to strike that balance?
Well, I think of myself as a very derivative writer. I write the same kind of stories as were written by John Buchan
and Ian Fleming, and, you know, there’s a whole century of thrillers. One thing that I did that was original was I put a
woman in a role that would normally be played by a man in those days. Eye of the Needle was published in 1978.
I don’t think up to that point there had been a woman as a hero of a story like this. And that was a very simple switch
but it made a big difference, it made the book much better.
I think the wish to be original can lead writers in the wrong direction. I think if you’re a real writer, then you don’t
have to worry too much about originality. What you do will be different and will have your own stamp on it anyway.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
I had to learn to be a perfectionist. When I started, I thought what mattered in thrillers was the action, the car
chases, the beautiful women, the punch-ups and the guns and that I didn’t have to worry about making the
characters subtle or describing landscapes. I was wrong. I realised I had to do my very best in all those areas. I had
to learn to create mood by careful selection of words and so on. While those aren’t the primary skills of a popular
novelist, you have to do them to the best of your ability.
The novel has to engage the reader emotionally. All the dramatic things that happen in thrillers only work if the
readers care about the people involved.
You have done some really hands-on research for your novels—flying
lessons, things like that. How do you decide when something really
requires that kind of first-hand experience for you to tell a story?
Well sometimes the drama requires the details. When I wrote Hornet Flight, I knew,
the whole story is about a young man who, in German-occupied Denmark in the
war, finds a plane and fixes it up because he wants to fly to freedom. There’s only
one possible ending for that story, which is a flight. And since it’s the ending of the
story, it’s got to be long. So I knew I was going to have to write about forty pages of
this kid flying a plane. And I couldn’t possibly do that unless I had actually flown a
plane myself. Absolutely, I felt it really wasn’t going to be possible just to keep
doing page after page about things that are happening to him while he’s flying this
plane. So really I took flying lessons to learn all those details so that I would be
able to write those forty pages. And when you absolutely need the nitty gritty is
when those details are going to be what gives you the drama.
What motivates you to keep writing? You could retire any day—you could stop any time.
When I get up in the morning, what I want to do is write the next scene, is work on the book. It’s what I love to do.
It’s great to do something that you’re good at. I enjoy it—enjoy is just too weak a word. It engages me in everything.
It engages my entire intellect, and my emotions, and everything such it is that I know about the world and how
human beings work. It’s all engaged in this challenge of casting a spell over readers. The work compels me
completely.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
10
CONTINUED
First published in 1974, you've been writing for nearly four decades. How does your
current writing process differ from that of your earlier years?
The technology has changed, from typewriter to computer, but my methods are the same: I make a detailed plan,
write the first draft, then rewrite it. The turning points were Eye of the Needle my first success, and The Pillars of
the Earth, which took me to a whole new audience.
So how long do you typically spend on an outline before you begin writing?
I do usually have a timetable. I look at how many chapters I’ve got,
how many scenes I’ve got, how long I want the book to be, and so
how many pages have I got to write, and so how many pages will I
write per week, and then I make a timetable that says that I should
have finished this draft on the 13th of December.
It usually takes between six months and a year. It’s pretty detailed—
it’s typically 50 typed pages. What takes me the time is that I change it
a lot. I start out with a concept, and then I see what’s wrong with it.
And I see how to make it better. One thing I quite often do is I go
through it backwards and I write a one-line summary of each chapter,
but starting with the last chapter. And what that does is it shows me
where the final scenes are not fulfilling the promises raised by the early scenes—which, for me, is terribly important. Whatever happens in
the last few chapters must be something either feared or longed for by
the characters in the early chapters. And a little trick for me for
focusing on that question, is to go through it backwards. I think a lot of
writers wish they could do that—if we could work all that out in an
outline, it might save us a lot of writing and rewriting.
What advice would you give to people who don’t believe their careers can have second
and third acts?
Well, for people who want to write best sellers, the best advice I can give is to say that the novel has to engage
the reader emotionally. All the dramatic things that happen in thrillers — chases, interrogation, deception,
romance — only work if the readers care about the people involved. If you have two men having a fistfight, it can
be mechanical and boring, like watching two drunks hitting each other on the street.
You don’t seem to mind taking confidence in your work, which doesn’t necessarily fit
the stereotype of the insecure writer.
Early in my career [my agent] Al [Zuckerman] said to me,
“You know, your only real problem as a writer is that you’re
not a tortured soul.” And that’s true. A lot of people write out
of some inner pain or difficulty. And I’m in general a fairly
cheerful being.
What authors, books, or ideas have influenced
you?
When I was 12, I read Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming. It
blew me away. Ten years later, when I started to write fiction,
my aim was to give readers the kind of excitement I had got
from James Bond.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
11
CONTINUED
In one past interview I heard you said that you need to read a lot
to become a good writer. Do you still have free time to read and
learn new things meanwhile working in such a vast work as The
Century Trilogy is?
Yes indeed. I read all the time. During all my life, reading has been one of my
greatest pleasures, so I would say that the main reason why I read is because I
enjoy it, but also by reading I like to see what other writers are doing, writers that
maybe do things in a different way than I do things. I find all that very interesting.
What are you most proud of in your career?
It was a pretty good achievement to write a novel about the rather unpromising
subject of building a cathedral in the Middle Ages and turning it into an international No.1. We’ve sold about twenty-one million copies of The Pillars Of The Earth.
That’s pretty good for a book a lot of people thought would be too dull.
What inspired you to write “The Pillars of the Earth” — that is, a 900-page novel about
the making of a Gothic cathedral?
I went and looked at one of these great cathedrals one day, and I was blown away by it. From there I became
interested in how cathedrals were built, and from there I became interested in the society that built the medieval
cathedral. It occurred to me at some point that the story of the building of a cathedral could be a great popular
novel. Not everybody agreed with that idea.
How long did it take you to write?
The whole thing took three years and three months. After two years I
only had about 200 pages, and I felt this was a crisis. And as a novelist
the only thing you can do if you want to write faster is work more hours.
So I started to work Saturdays and then Sundays as well. The difficulty
is simply that you’ve got to keep on making up more and more stuff
about the same people.
If you write 100,000 words of a thriller, then it’s finished. But after
100,000 words of “The Pillars of the Earth,” that’s like that much. [He
holds open first quarter of the book.] I had all that to go. [He holds open
the final three-quarters.] That was the great difficulty.
You’ve sold more than 100 million books – what’s the
secret of your success?
It’s not really a formula but there is a simple rule – the reader must have
an emotional reaction to the story. The reader must feel sad or their
pulse must race, and if that happens, you’ve got them and they’ll turn
the pages. Without that, the book may be clever, socially significant,
brilliantly written but if it doesn’t move people, it won’t be a best-seller.
What was it like when your spy thriller Eye Of The Needle was such a big hit?
The best feeling. Some things are better when you have to wait for them. I knew Eye Of The Needle was much
better than anything I’d done before – it wasn’t that I was writing well and the public suddenly realised it. I wasn’t
writing well enough for the first ten books.
All questions and answers taken from interviews originally published in Metro, Free Magazine, The New York Times, Good
Reads and Writers Digest.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
12
A STORYTELLER—BORN OR BRED?
Ken Follett, author of more than twenty best-selling novels, is often hailed as a born story-teller.
But looking at his early life it may be more accurate to say he was bred as one.
Ken was born in Cardiff, Wales on 5 June 1949, the first of Martin and Veenie
Follett’s three children. In post-war Britain, not only were toys a scarcity for the
Follett children, but their devoutly religious parents did not permit them to watch
television, go to the cinema or even listen to the radio. The young Ken’s
sources of entertainment were the many stories told to him by his mother -- and
the fantasy and adventure he created in his own imagination. He began
reading at an early age; books became his greatest pleasure and the local
library his favourite place.
“I didn’t have many books of my own and I’ve always been grateful for the public library. Without free books I would not have become a voracious reader, and
if you are not a reader you are not a writer.”
When he was ten his family moved to London, where he completed his schooling. He then studied philosophy at University College; a seemingly surprising
choice for the son of a tax inspector, but an obvious one for Ken given his
religious upbringing and the many questions he had as a result. He believes
the choice shaped his future as a writer.
As a schoolboy in Wales
“There is a real connection between philosophy and fiction. In philosophy you
deal with questions like: We’re sitting at this table, but is the table real?’ A daft
question, but in studying philosophy, you need to take that sort of thing
seriously and have an off-the-wall imagination. Writing fiction is the same.”
Questioning what was real within a lecture hall was one thing; quite another
reality for Ken was becoming a husband and father. He married Mary Elson at
the end of his first term at university and their son, Emanuele, was born in July
1968.
“It’s not the kind of thing that you plan to do when you are 18 but once it had
happened it was very thrilling. I felt doubly rich because I was having a great
time at university and it was also tremendously exciting to have a little baby
and take care of him. We loved him and he was very endearing. He still is.”
It was also at university, in the heady atmosphere of the late 60s when the war
with Vietnam was underway, that Ken began developing a passion for politics:
“Politics was discussed all the time. It seemed as if student protest was a
worldwide movement. Although we were young and had the arrogance of
youth, nevertheless when you look at the issues that we fought over, I think
by and large we were right.”
Student life...
Starting out
In September 1970, fresh out of university, a three-month graduate journalism
course set him on a writer’s path. He began as a reporter for the South Wales
Echo in Cardiff, and then, following the birth of daughter Marie-Claire in 1973,
as a columnist for the Evening News in London. When he did not “make the
grade as the hot-shot investigative reporter” he’d imagined he might be, Ken
started writing fiction at night and on weekends. In 1974 he left newspapers
and joined a small London publisher, Everest Books.
His after-hours writing led to the publication of several books, none of which
sold very well, but throughout those years he was encouraged and advised by
an American literary agent, Al Zuckerman. Then came the time came when
they both knew that Ken had a winner and Zuckerman said: “This novel is going to be huge, and you are going to have tax problems”.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
The write stuff
13
“I was very worried that I might not be able to do it again. It happens to quite a
lot of writers. They write one terrific book and then the next one is not so good
and doesn’t sell quite so well, the third one is not very good and they never
write a fourth. I was conscious that might easily happen to me, and so I worked
very hard on Triple to try to make it as exciting as Eye of the Needle.”
The Folletts returned to England three years later because Ken missed the
films and theatre and all the stimulation that London offered, and he wanted to
vote. They settled in Surrey where Ken became involved with fundraising and
campaigning for the Labour Party. It was then that he met and fell in love with
the Party’s local branch secretary, Barbara Broer (née Hubbard) whom he
married in 1985.
They live in Hertfordshire in an old rectory, which is also home-from-home for
Ken’s son and daughter, Barbara’s son and two daughters and their partners
and children.
Barbara was Member of Parliament for Stevenage – a seat she won in 1997
and to which she was returned in the 2001 and 2005 elections – and was
Minister for Equality in Gordon Brown’s government in 2007. She retired from
active politics in 2010. Ken helped her campaign and worked with her on other
Party activities. In spite of his political commitment, Ken has never allowed
politics to take precedence over writing. He begins writing before breakfast and
continues until about 5 pm: “I am a morning person. As soon as I’m up, I want
to get to my desk. In the evening I want to relax and eat and drink and do all
that sort of low-tension stuff.”
The first best-seller
On the racks
Ken has written 29 books in the past 35 years. The first five best-sellers were
spy thrillers: Eye of the Needle (1978), Triple (1979), The Key to Rebecca
(1980), The Man from St Petersburg (1982) and Lie Down with Lions (1986).
On Wings of Eagles (1983), was the true story of how two of Ross Perot’s
employees were rescued from Iran during the revolution of 1979.
Barbara Follett
He then surprised readers by radically changing course with The Pillars of the
Earth (1989), a novel about building a cathedral in the Middle Ages. It received
rave reviews and was on the New York Times best-seller list for 18 weeks. It
also topped best-seller lists in Canada, Britain and Italy, and was on the
German best-seller list for six years. It has sold 18 million copies so far.
The next three novels, Night Over Water (1991), A Dangerous Fortune (1993)
and A Place Called Freedom (1995) were more historical than thriller, but he
returned to the thriller genre with The Third Twin (1996) which in the Publishing
Trends annual survey of international fiction best-sellers for 1997 was ranked
No. 2 worldwide, after John Grisham’s The Partner. His next work, The
Hammer of Eden (1998) was another contemporary suspense story followed
by a Cold War thriller, Code to Zero (2000).
Ken returned to the WWII era with his next two novels: Jackdaws (2001), a
World War II thriller about a group of women parachuted into France to destroy
a vital telephone exchange – which won the Corine Prize for 2003 – and Hornet
Flight (2002), about a daring young Danish couple who escape to Britain from
occupied Denmark in a rebuilt Hornet Moth biplane with vital information about
German radar.
An accomplished novelist
Whiteout (2004), is a contemporary thriller about the theft of a deadly virus from
a research lab. Set in the remote Scottish Highlands over a stormy,
snow-bound Christmas, Whiteout crackles with jealousies, distrust, sexual
attraction, rivalries, hidden traitors and unexpected heroes.
World Without End (2007) is the long-awaited sequel to the hugely-popular The
Pillars of the Earth. The book returns to Kingsbridge two hundred years later,
and features the descendants of the characters in ‘Pillars’. Broad in sweep, and
massive in scope, it focuses on the destinies of a handful of people as their
lives are devastated by the Black Death, the plague that swept Europe in the
middle of the fourteenth century.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
Ken in 2002
14
The ‘Century’ trilogy
The master of the epic’s next three novels embrace five generations on three
continents, in the ‘Century’ trilogy. Fall of Giants (2010) followed the fates of
five interrelated families – American, German, Russian, English and Welsh –
as they moved through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the
Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. Fall of Giants, published simultaneously in 14 countries, was an international sensation and
topped several best-seller lists.
Winter of the World (2012) picks up where the first book left off, as its five
interrelated families enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic
turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil
War and the great dramas of World War II, to the explosions of the American
and Soviet atomic bombs and the beginning of the long Cold War.
The third novel in the ‘Century’ trilogy, Edge of Eternity, which follows those
families through the events of the last half of the century, is due to be published
in September 2014.
So far the ‘Century’ trilogy has sold over 10.6 million copies worldwide.
Visual delights
Eye of the Needle was made into an acclaimed film, starring Donald Sutherland, and six novels have been made into television mini-series: The Key to
Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, On Wings of Eagles, The Third Twin – the
rights for which were sold to CBS for $1 400 000, a record price at the time –
and The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. These last two have been
screened in several languages in many countries. Ken also realised a lifetime
dream with a cameo role as the valet in The Third Twin – and later as a merchant in The Pillars of the Earth – but is not about to give up his day job.
Wine, woman and song
The great pleasures in Ken’s life, other than the people he loves, are good food
and wine, Shakespeare, and music. Music has always featured largely in his
life – both his parents played the piano. Ken plays bass guitar in a band called
“Damn Right I Got The Blues” and has recorded on the “Don’t Quit Your Day
Job” label – appropriate for a man who makes no exaggerated claims about
his musical talents:
“Playing in a band is very sensory and writing is completely cerebral. My books
are closely plotted, like all popular fiction, so I am always thinking about the
mechanics of the story. Playing in a band is completely sensory. There’s a
connection from the ears to the fingertips that does not pass through the
conscious brain.”
Time to give
In a busy life focused on work, family and politics, Ken also manages to find
time for involvement in his community. He was Chair of the National Year of
Reading 1998-99, a British government initiative to raise literacy levels. He was
president of the charity Dyslexia Action for ten years. He is a Fellow of The
Welsh Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of University College, London.
In 2007 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Literature (D.Litt.) by the
University of Glamorgan, and similar degrees by Saginaw Valley State
University, Michigan – where his papers are kept in the Ken Follett Archive –
and (in 2008) by the University of Exeter. He is active in numerous Stevenage
charities and was a governor of Roebuck Primary School for ten years, serving
as Chair of Governors for four of those years.
Revised in September 2012. This document is available at www.ken-follett.com/media
For more information, e-mail Ken at [email protected]
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
15
FILM & TV
Several of Ken Follett’s novels have been made into films or TV mini-series and he fulfilled a life-long dream when
he played cameo roles in The Pillars of the Earth and The Third Twin. Ken has also been the executive producer of
the South African made films White Wedding and Paradise Stop.
Eye of the Needle
1981. Directed by Richard Marquand. Screenplay by Stanley Mann.
Starring Donald Sutherland as Faber and Kate Nelligan as Lucy.
With Stephen MacKenna, Philip Martin Brown and Christopher
Cazenove. It was nominated as Best Motion Picture in the 1982
Edgar Allan Poe Awards.
The Key to Rebecca
1985. Directed by David Hemmings. Starring Cliff Robertson as
Major William Vandam, David Soul as Alex Wolff, Season Hubley
as Elene Fontana and Anthony Quayle as Abdullah.
On Wings of Eagles
1986. A five-hour TV mini-series. By Andrew McLaglen, starring
Burt Lancaster as Lieutenant Colonel Arthur E. ‘Bull’ Simons, Richard Crenna as H. Ross Perot and Paul Le Mat as Jay Coburn. With
Louis Giambalvo, Jim Metzler and Lawrence Pressman.
Lie Down with Lions
1994. Directed by Jim Goddard. Starring Timothy Dalton as Jack
Carver. Also released as Red Eagle.
The Third Twin
1997. Directed by Tom McLoughlin. Starring Kelly McGillis as Dr.
Jeannie Ferami, Jason Gedrick as Steve Logan and Larry Hagman
as Berrington Jones.
Eisfieber (Whiteout)
Germany, 2010. Directed by Peter Keglevic. Starring Heiner Lauterbach as Stanley Oxenford, Isabella Ferrari as Toni Gallo, Tom
Schilling as Kit Oxenford, Matthias Brandt as Nigel Malone,
Anneke Kim Sarnau as Daisy Mac, Bülent Sharif as Elton and
Katharina Wackernagel as Mandy.
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
16
The Pillars of the Earth
The eight-hour limited series of The Pillars of the Earth premiered on Friday 23 July
2011 in the United States on the Starz channel. Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland,
Rufus Sewell, Matthew Macfadyen, Sarah Parish, Hayley Atwell, Eddie Redmayne
and Gordon Pinsent headlined the star-studded cast for the US $40-million adaptation.
The series set viewership records in several countries and received several awards,
including a Creative Arts Emmy award and three Gemini awards.
The series was directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, and was adapted by
award-winning writer John Pielmeier, who also played the role of 'Cuthbert'. Ken had
a cameo as a merchant. The series was produced by Tandem Communications
and Muse Entertainment in association with Scott Free Films.
World Without End
The $46 million eight-hour miniseries of World Without End aired in Canada
on Showcase in September , in the United States on the Reelz channel in October
2012 and in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 in January 2013. It has been
screened in several other countries.
Principal cast members include Cynthia Nixon as Petranilla, Miranda Richardson as
Mother Cecilia, Ben Chaplin as Sir Thomas Langley, Peter Firth as Earl Roland,
Charlotte Riley as Caris and Tom Weston-Jones as Merthin.
Also cast are Rupert Evans as Godwyn, Nora von Waldstätten as Gwenda, Oliver
Jackson-Cohen as Ralph, Megan Follows as Maud, and Sarah Gadon as Philippa.
Michael Caton-Jones directed from a script by John Pielmeier, who also adapted The
Pillars of the Earth.
The series is produced by Tandem Communications and Take 5 Productions in coproduction with Galafilms and in
association with Ridley Scott and Tony Scott’s Scott Free Films. Tandem and Scott Free also produced the eighthour adaptation of The Pillars of the Earth.
World Without End won an Emmy Award, for Outstanding music composition for a miniseries, movie or a special.
The music was composed by Mychael Danna, who is also the winner of the 2013 Oscar and Golden Globe awards
for the soundtrack for Life of Pi.
Ken Follett’s Journey into the Dark Ages
Ken Follett hosts a thrilling historical documentary, the
first of its kind on television. He introduces a
docu-drama about the Dark Ages and the characters
that inspired The Pillars of the Earth and World Without
End. He gives us an intimate glimpse into the world of
his imagination and the extraordinary characters who
have inspired him – women such as Hildegard von
Bingen, who advocated new approaches to healing and
medicine or Marguerite Porete, who in 1295, challenged
the hegemony of the Church with a revolutionary book.
Ken Follett’s Journey Into The Dark Ages is divided into two parts of approximately 45 minutes each, covering Great
Women of the Middle Ages and The Black Death. It was directed by Jann Turner.
For more information on these three productions, see www.tandemcom.de
Ken Follett
www.ken-follett.com
17
IMAGE GALLERY
Selection of images available for download at www.ken-follett.com/media
These images—and others not included here—are royalty-free, but where applicable, please credit the photographer.
The photographer’s name is given on both the image and in the file metadata.
At Belchite, Spain
In Florence, Italy
On HMS Belfast, London
16th Street Baptist Church,
Alabama, USA
Ken Follett
At Cardiff Library
In the Churchill War Rooms, London
Launching Winter of the World, Spain
www.ken-follett.com
At Ely Cathedral, in Cambridgeshire, England
18