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BIO
Most people first heard of Ken Follett when he wrote EYE OF THE NEEDLE (1978), a taut and original thriller with a memorable woman character in the central role, which spent 30 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The book won the Edgar award and became an outstanding film starring Kate Nelligan and Donald Sutherland. He went on to write four more bestselling thriller: TRIPLE (1979); THE KEY TO REBECCA (1980); THE MAN FROM ST. PETERSBURG (1982); and LIE DOWN WITH LIONS (1986). Cliff Robertson and David Soul starred in the miniseries of The Key to Rebecca. In 1994 Timothy Dalton, Omar Shariff and Marg Helgenberger starred in the miniseries of Lie Down with Lions. He also wrote ON WINGS OF EAGLES (1983), the true story of how two employees of Ross Perot were rescued from Iran during the revolution of 1979. The book was made into a miniseries with Richard Crenna as Ross Perot and Burt Lancaster as Colonel “Bull” Simmons.
He then surprised readers by radically changing course with THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, a novel about building a cathedral in the middle ages. Published in September 1989 to rave reviews, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for eighteen weeks. It also reached the No. 1 position on lists in Canada, Great Britain, and Italy, and was on the German bestseller list for six years. It has now become a worldwide cult: there is even a Pillars of the Earth holiday. Although he abandoned the straightforward spy genre, his stories still had powerful narrative drive, strong women characters, and elements of surprise and intrigue. He followed PILLARS with NIGHT OVER WATER, A DANGEROUS FORTUNE, and A PLACE CALLED FREEDOM.
Then he returned to the thriller. THE THIRD TWIN (1996) is a scorching suspense novel about a young woman scientist who stumbles over a secret experiment in genetic engineering. Miniseries rights were sold to CBS for $1,400,000, a record price for four hours of television. The series, starring Kelly McGillis and Larry Hagman, was broadcast in the USA in November 1997. In Publishing Trends’ annual survey of international fiction bestsellers of 1997, THE THIRD TWIN was ranked No. 2 in the world, beaten only by John Grisham’s THE PARTNER. THE HAMMER OF EDEN, another nail-biting contemporary suspense story, came in 1998. CODE ZERO, was about brainwashing and rocket science in the fifties, which was published in December 2000. Only days after the novel was finished, film rights were snapped up by Doug Wick, producer of Gladiator, in a seven-figure deal. Then came JACKDAWS a cinematic thriller about a ragtag, all-female band of British agents, which was published in December 2001. HORNET FLIGHT was published in 2002.
Ken Follett is married to Barbara Follett, the Member of Parliament for Stevenage in Hertfordshire. They live in a rambling rectory in Stevenage with two Labrador retrievers called Custard and Bess. They also have an eighteenth-century town house in London and a holiday home in Antigua. Ken Follett is a lover of Shakespeare, and is often to be seen at performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company at London’s Barbican Theatre.
An enthusiastic amateur musician, he plays bass guitar in a band called Damn Right I Got the Blues. He was Chair of the National Year of Reading 1998-99, a British government initiative to raise literacy levels. He is president of the Dyslexia Institute, a council member of the National Literary Trust, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Ken Follett was born on June 5, 1949 in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a tax-inspector. He was educated at state schools and graduated from University College, London, with an Honors degree in philosophy. He was made a Fellow of the college in 1995. He became a reporter, first with his hometown newspaper the South Wales Echo and later with the London Evening News. While working on the Evening News he wrote his first novel, which was published but did not become a bestseller. He then went to work for a small London publishing house, Everest Books, eventually becoming Deputy Managing Director. He continued to write novels in his spare time. EYE OF THE NEEDLE was his eleventh book, and his first success. To date, Ken Follett has written over a dozen international bestsellers.
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AUTHOR TALK
 October 19, 2007
Though known primarily as a writer of suspense/thrillers, author Ken Follett credits his 1989 bestseller THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH --- a historical novel that chronicles the construction of a cathedral during the Middle Ages --- as his greatest work to date. His most recent book, WORLD WITHOUT END, revisits the cathedral town of Kingsbridge 200 years later, during the pivotal time of the Black Plague. In this interview, Follett discusses the shifts in social and religious thought during those two centuries that ultimately gave rise to modern medicine and explains some of the real-life inspirations behind the book's fictional happenings. He also talks about why he chose to write a sequel after 18 years, elaborates on the connections between the two books in terms of setting and characters, and shares topics he'd possibly like to cover in future projects.
Question: You took a risk to write THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH. Were you confident it would work both critically and commercially or were you surprised when it became such a success after it was published in 1989?
Ken Follett: I felt I had written a very commercial novel with a heavyweight theme, and I was hoping for a big reaction from critics and the public. The reviews were mixed and the public response was, at first, muted. The book sold about the same number of copies in the United States as my previous book, and frankly I was disappointed. But over time it became clear that PILLARS was a phenomenally popular backlist title, selling at double the rate of my others. So I was surprised twice.
Q: You’ve said that you consider PILLARS to be your best book to date. Do you find that paradoxical, since you’re known primarily as a writer of thrillers and suspense novels?
KF: It was never my ambition to become famous for a novel about a church. I’m still kind of surprised that I wrote it. Of course, it’s not really about a church; it’s about a group of people who set out to do something that seems almost impossible.
Q: Did you know as you were completing PILLARS that there would be a sequel?
KF: PILLARS was the first book that truly exhausted my imagination. When it was done, I felt as if I had run a marathon. I certainly had no thought of a sequel --- in fact, if you had told me then that I would one day have to do it all over again I think I might have thrown myself off London Bridge.
Q: You’ve said that you were nervous about creating a sequel to PILLARS, which was so beloved by its readers. Now that you have finished WORLD WITHOUT END, do you still feel that way?
KF: No. I was worried, because so many sequels fall below the standard of the original and seem exploitative. But I’m confident that WORLD WITHOUT END will give readers the same kind of pleasure as they got from PILLARS.
Q: Why did you wait so long to write WORLD WITHOUT END? Was it concern about measuring up to PILLARS or did you simply need that time to gear yourself up for another major historical novel?
KF: I certainly was concerned to write a novel that would not disappoint the legions of fans of PILLARS, but there were other reasons for the delay. At the end of PILLARS, all the major characters are either very old or dead. So I could not write another book about them. Eventually, I decided to write another story set in the same town two hundred years later. Also, I spent a long time searching for a theme as grand and as engaging as the building of a cathedral. When finally I thought of a story based around the Black Death and the birth of modern medicine, I felt I had at last come up with a big enough theme.
Q: Why did you set WORLD WITHOUT END in the fourteenth century, some two hundred years after PILLARS? In what sense was that a time of new ideas, ferment, and change?
KF: Until the Black Death, everyone believed that the best way to recover from illness was to pray. The plague changed people’s thinking. It destroyed their faith in the old methods. In religion, there was a new emphasis on the individual’s personal encounter with God, not necessarily mediated by the priesthood. And, in medicine, the emphasis was on observation and record keeping, which gave physicians practical knowledge about what treatments actually worked. Of course, these changes were fiercely resisted by traditionalists, and this is the background to some of the dramatic conflicts in WORLD WITHOUT END.
Q: Some of the characters in WORLD WITHOUT END are descendants of characters from PILLARS. Can you name a few?
KF: The main female character, Caris, is a descendant of Tom Builder through Tom’s daughter, Martha. Caris and all her family have brown eyes flecked with gold, as Tom did. Merthin, the principal male character, is descended from Jack and Aliena, and has Jack’s red hair as well as his inspired architectural imagination. Merthin’s brother, Ralph, is more like Aliena’a brother, Richard, in being a great soldier but not much use for any other purpose.
Q: What are the main strands of the story in WORLD WITHOUT END?
KF: At the beginning of the book, the main characters are all children, but each of them has an aim in life, although they may understand it only vaguely. Caris wants to be a physician, Ralph wants to be a baron, Gwenda longs to be free, Godwyn aims to be Prior of Kingsbridge. The story shows how they struggle to achieve their ambitions --- and how their individual destinies are violently disrupted by the plague.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from this novel?
KF: I wanted to write a book that would stay with readers for the rest of their lives.
Q: Do you see a third book in this series?
KF: I certainly don’t see it yet, even vaguely, but it’s possible.
Q: Your work is clearly inspired by the architecture of historical buildings --- do you envision that any modern architecture will lead you to create a novel?
KF: I have toyed with the idea of a novel about the building of the first skyscraper.
Q: Are there other interests, hobbies, intellectual pursuits of yours that might one day find themselves the subject of one of your books?
KF: I’m interested in Shakespeare, but there have been too many stories about that period. I’d like to write something about the blues one day, but I hesitate because I feel an American writer could do it better.
Q: You’ve said that in childhood you found your escape in the world of books. Is that still true? Who are you reading now? Is it harder now, in the age of television and Internet distractions, to find new authors?
KF: I still read a lot all the time, some history and biography but mostly fiction. I just finished a wonderful novel called THE NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri. One of the reasons I liked it so much is that the author engages the reader totally even though not much happens --- quite the opposite of my own books, which are full of incident!
Q: Your wife is a Member of Parliament in Britain, and you are also involved in politics. Is that a completely separate realm from writing for you or do they feed one another?
KF: I never write directly about my own life, but indirectly everything ends up being used in my work. For example, in PILLARS and in WORLD WITHOUT END, there are elections in which the monks choose their prior. My handling of those dramas is strongly influenced by things that I have experienced as a political campaigner.
Q: You and your wife have a large blended family, and you all spend quite a bit of time together. How do you balance work and family? Has that changed over the years?
KF: There’s no balance. I always give my children priority. If they phone, or show up at my house, I drop my work and talk to them. Nothing else is as important.
Q: What is a typical day like for you, or is there such a thing?
KF: I start work early in the morning, around seven. I do an hour or so then walk the dogs and have breakfast. Then I work until four p.m., with a break for lunch. After four, I return phone calls and reply to e-mails for an hour or two. I have a glass of champagne at six. Then I either cook dinner at home or put on a suit and go out on the town.
Q: What is your next project?
KF: Give me a break!
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PAST INTERVIEW
 December 6, 2002
Known for his thrillers (EYE OF THE NEEDLE, JACKDAWS, THE THIRD TWIN) and historical fiction (THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH), Ken Follett has entertained readers for decades. In this interview with Bookreporter.com Follett discusses the historical background behind his latest book, HORNET FLIGHT, and why he believes World War II fiction will remain popular.
BRC: A major "character" in your book is a small plane, the Hornet Moth. You are either an aviator, repair engines as a hobby or are a great researcher. Which is it?
Ken Follett: Research. I spent time with a specialist in Hornet Moth engineering, Mark Miller, and went up in his plane. He also acted as consultant on the book, and corrected both first and second drafts. I also had flying lessons in a similar plane, a Tiger Moth.
BRC: In this book, you give great descriptions of tiny towns on small islands in Denmark. Are they fictional --- or do you travel for research purposes?
KF: The locations are either real or based on real places. "Sande" is Fano, and "Morlunde" is Esbjerg. I visited all the locations in Denmark and Sweden.
BRC: "Some of what follows really happened," you say, by way of prologue. Can you expand on that --- and tell us how you know the germ of this story?
KF: Two young Danish pilots who wanted to escape from German occupation found a Hornet Moth biplane in a barn. They repaired it and stole petrol from the Germans, then flew it across the North Sea to England. They brought with them movie film of the German radar base on the island of Fano. My story is inspired by what they did, although the details are different and all the characters are invented.
BRC: World War II ended 57 years ago. The men and women who fought it or remember it are dying off. And yet the World War II thriller survives. Why?
KF: It is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine that writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.
BRC: Reading your book the first time, I gobbled it up. The second time, I saw the expertise --- the sturdy construction, the plot twists, the character traits that determine what characters do. How much of the story of "Hornet Moth" did you "know" before you started writing? Did anything change as
you wrote?
KF: Everything is planned. I spent a long time outlining. It's the only way I know to get all the ducks in a row.
BRC: What's the most fun writing these books --- the research, the plotting, the writing --- or typing THE END? Why?
KF: The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun because you can do anything. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying, because I feel that everything I do is making the book a little better. When I've finished, I enjoy the feeling that I've paid the rent for a couple more years.
BRC: In World War I and World War II in England, the government made great use of writers and other bright minds as spies and Intelligence officers. If you were asked to help in the war against terrorism.....
KF: Too unlikely to contemplate.
BRC: With all the cloak-and-dagger activity in the world today, should we expect your next book to be set in 2003?
KF: I'm working on a story set in 1948.
BRC: Do you ever frighten yourself?
KF: No. Remember, I know how it's done.
BRC: What suspense writers do you read with pleasure? Or do you avoid them and read only in other genres?
KF: Stephen King, Thomas Harris.
BRC: What's next for Ken Follett?
KF: My book after next will be a sequel to THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH.
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PAST INTERVIEW
 December 15, 2000
CODE TO ZERO, is the intense new thriller from Ken Follett, the acclaimed author of EYE OF THE NEEDLE and THE THIRD TWIN. Bookreporter.com Writer Ann Bruns, a life-long fan, was eager to find out more about the man behind the books. Join our conversation with Follett as we question him about his writing, the CIA, communism, his early children's books, a hint about his next project and much more.
BRC: CODE TO ZERO is an action-packed thriller leading up to the launch of the Explorer I satellite which took place in 1958. Why did you choose to use an actual event as your focal point rather than create a fictional launch?
Ken Follett: Most of my stories have some basis in fact. I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: "Okay, this probably didn't happen, but it might have."
BRC: Was the continuation of the United States as a world power actually so precarious in the 50s that everything hinged on the success of this one space launch?
KF: It certainly seemed that way at the time. With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn't know that then.
BRC: Was the plan to sabotage the US space program in CODE TO ZERO based on any real event?
KF: No. However, the CIA research program, in which they tested drugs including LSD for possible use on interrogation subjects, is real.
BRC: At the beginning of the chapters, you've included actual scientific information about the Jupiter missiles that create a fascinating backdrop. At one point, there's a reference to the fuel containing a form of nerve gas. Wouldn't this have posed a serious danger to the public given the possibility of explosions?
KF: You bet it would. But we weren't as careful about our environment back in 1958.
BRC: This isn't the first time your novels have dealt with highly technical scientific data. Is this a field you've pursued, or are you just a voracious researcher?
KF: I enjoy learning technical details, and I believe the readers like the feeling that they are learning about something as well as enjoying a good story.
BRC: In CODE TO ZERO you depict Harvard in the pre-WWII era as a hotbed of dissident activity, with a great many students and professors actively supporting Communism. Was this a reflection of the trendy youth cells that sprung up briefly on many college campuses during this time period or was there a more serious communist movement taking place on this campus?
KF: I don't think "trendy" is the word. There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era.
BRC: This group of college friends ends up involved in government activities during WWII --- chiefly the CIA. Yet there was little indication in their college years that any of them had an interest in, or aptitude for, covert work, particularly Luke. Why would a guy who seemed so passive end up working for the CIA in the French Resistance?
KF: Some of them were already involved in covert work at Harvard, but being covert it was secret, which is why they showed little indication of it. Others were simply among the many people who did extraordinary and brave things in wartime.
BRC: Luke eventually discovers that he's been subjected to a treatment that causes global amnesia. In what little information I was able to find, global amnesia is generally referred to as transient rather than irreversible. Have there been case studies in which this type of amnesia was found to be permanent?
KF: No. I have imagined that the CIA research program was successful in finding a way to cause permanent amnesia. In real life the program was totally unsuccessful, despite costing millions of dollars.
BRC: The government-sanctioned low-profile experiments that Billie's research team conducted on drug effects and mind control are reminiscent of actual experiments that have been exposed to public scrutiny in recent years. Do you believe most of these secret activities have now been uncovered, or have we just seen the tip of the iceberg?
KF: The CIA is still pathologically secretive. We know much more about the KGB. God knows what the CIA has done.
BRC: Anthony's motivation for becoming a communist and later a spy never seemed very clear, even to the character himself. In fact, he seemed perfectly content belonging to a wealthy, prestigious family and he certainly had achieved success in his career. Did I miss something?
KF: I guess you did. He was pretending to be perfectly content. In fact he was angry and rebellious.
BRC: Within the storyline of CODE TO ZERO you touch on a number of sensitive subjects like illegal activities by the CIA and the weaknesses of the space program in those early years. How do you go about researching such sensitive areas?
KF: The CIA's research program is described in a book called "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate." The problems of the early space program are covered in many books.
BRC: You authored an impressive list of successful novels taking place in all parts of the world during a variety of eras from the Dark Ages to the 20th century. Do you have a favorite time period that you enjoy writing about? Would you like to write more nonfiction or do you prefer the thriller genre?
KF: My favorite period is World War Two, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.
BRC: ON WINGS OF EAGLES was the true story of the rescue mission mounted by Ross Perot to free his employees from an Iranian prison during the Islamic Revolution. A fascinating book, by the way! How did you come to be the one to chronicle their story?
KF: Ross said to his wife: "Who do you think should write the book about the rescue?" She happened to be reading one of my books and said: "This guy is great."
BRC: When your children were young, you wrote a few children's mysteries, but none recently. Would you ever consider writing more children or young adult fiction?
KF: I might. But I wrote those books when my own children were small, and I knew exactly what children would understand and enjoy. Now that they're grown up, I'm not sure I could do it.
BRC: THE KEY TO REBECCA, LIE DOWN WITH LIONS, and THE THIRD TWIN were all made into miniseries; and CODE TO ZERO has already been optioned for the big screen. Have you been pleased with the results of these productions?
KF: Sometimes.
BRC: "Eye" was a very good film. "Rebecca" and "Twin" were excellent miniseries. Were you involved in writing the screen versions?
KF: No.
BRC: What is your approach to writing a novel --- do you organize the plot and characters from A to Z before beginning, or do you let it flow as you go?
KF: I spend about a year planning the book in great detail before I write page one.
BRC: What authors inspired you?
KF: Ian Fleming, with the James Bond books (not the films, which are too unrealistic).
BRC: Who do you enjoy reading now?
KF: Stephen King.
BRC: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
KF: Be a perfectionist.
BRC: Is there another Follett novel already underway? If so, can you tell us something about it?
KF: It's about a group of women in the French Resistance.
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