Ken Follett | |
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| Born | Kenneth Martin Follett (1949-06-05)5 June 1949 (age 76) Cardiff, Wales |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Citizenship | British, French (since 2025) |
| Alma mater | University College London |
| Period | 1974–present |
| Genre | Thriller,spy novel,historical fiction |
| Notable works | Eye of the Needle The Key to Rebecca The Pillars of the Earth World Without End Whiteout Century Trilogy |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Jann Turner (step-daughter) |
| Website | |
| www | |
Kenneth Martin Follett (born 5 June 1949) is a Welsh author ofthrillers andhistorical novels who has sold more than 195 million copies of his works.[1][2]
Follett's commercial breakthrough came with thespy thrillerEye of the Needle (1978). After writing more best-sellers in the genre in the 1980s, he branched intohistorical fiction withThe Pillars of the Earth (1989), anepic set inmedieval England which became his best-known work and the first book in theKingsbridge series. He has continued to write in both genres, including theCentury Trilogy. Many of his books have achieved high ranking on bestseller lists, including the number-one position on theNew York Times Best Seller list.[a]
Follett was born on 5 June 1949 inCardiff, Wales. He was the first child of Martin Follett, a tax inspector, and Lavinia (Veenie) Follett, who went on to have two more children, Hannah and James.[4][5] Barred from watching films and television by hisPlymouth Brethren parents, he developed an early interest in reading but remained an indifferent student until he entered his teens.[4][5] His family moved to London when he was ten years old, and he began applying himself to his studies atHarrow Weald Grammar School andPoole Technical College.
In 1967, he was admitted toUniversity College London, where he studied philosophy and became active in centre-left politics. He married Mary in 1968, and their son, Emanuele, was born the same year. After graduating in 1970, he completed a three-month postgraduate journalism course and began working as a trainee reporter for theSouth Wales Echo in Cardiff. In 1973, his daughter, Marie-Claire, was born.
After three years in Cardiff, he returned to London as a general-assignment reporter for theEvening News. Finding the work unchallenging, he eventually left journalism for publishing and became, by the late 1970s, deputy managing director of the small London publisher Everest Books.[4] He began writing fiction during evenings and weekends as a hobby. Later, he said, he began writing books when he needed £200 to fix his car, and the publishers' advance a fellow journalist had been paid for a thriller was £200.[6]
Success came gradually at first, but the 1978 publication ofEye of the Needle, which became an international bestseller and sold over 10 million copies, made him both wealthy and internationally famous.[7]
Each of Follett's subsequent novels has become a best-seller, ranking high on theNew York Times Best Seller list; a number have been adapted for the screen. As of January 2018, he had published 44 books.[8] 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) andLie Down with Lions (1986).On Wings of Eagles (1983) was the true story of how two ofRoss Perot's employees were rescued from Iran during the revolution of 1979.The next three novels,Night Over Water (1991),A Dangerous Fortune (1993) andA Place Called Freedom (1995) were more historical than thriller, but he returned to the thriller genre withThe Third Twin (1996) which in thePublishing Trends annual survey of international fiction best-sellers for 1997 was ranked no. 2 worldwide, afterJohn Grisham'sThe Partner. His next work,The Hammer of Eden (1998), was another contemporary suspense story followed by aCold War thriller,Code to Zero (2000).
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Follett returned to theSecond World War era with his next two novels,Jackdaws (2001), a thriller about a group of women parachuted into France to destroy a vital telephone exchange – which won theCorine Literature Prize for 2003 – andHornet Flight (2002), about a daring youngDanish couple who escape to Britain from occupied Denmark in a rebuiltHornet Moth biplane with vital information about German radar.Whiteout (2004) is a contemporary thriller about the theft of a deadly virus from a research lab.
The five-volume series has been described as "as comprehensive an account of the building of a civilization – with its laws, structures, customs and beliefs – as you are likely to encounter anywhere in popular fiction".[9]
Follett's novels,Fall of Giants,Winter of the World andEdge of Eternity, make up the Century Trilogy.Fall of Giants (2010) followed the fates of five interrelated families – Welsh, American, German, Russian and English – as they moved through the world-shaking dramas of theFirst World War, theRussian Revolution and the struggle for women'ssuffrage.Fall of Giants, published simultaneously in 14 countries, was internationally popular and topped several best-seller lists.[17]
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 ofNazi Germany, through theSpanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, to the explosions of the American and Soviet atom bombs and the beginning of the long Cold War.
The final novel in the 'Century' trilogy,Edge of Eternity, which follows those families through the events of the second half of the 20th century, was published on 16 September 2014. Like the previous two books, it chronicles the lives of five families through the Cold War and civil-rights movements.[18]
A major element of the first two volumes,Fall of Giants andWinter of the World, is the increasing political assertiveness of the British working class and the rise of theBritish Labour Party – exemplified by the Williams Family, Welsh coal miners, of which several viewpoint characters end up as Members of the British Parliament and one of them becomes a cabinet minister inClement Attlee's post-WWII Labour government. However, the theme of British politics is nearly absent from the third partEdge of Eternity, which concentrates on the Cold War on the one hand and the US Civil Rights Movement on the other; for example, though the novel continues until 1989, it makes no reference at all to the rise ofMargaret Thatcher in 1979.
Follett has had a number of novels made into films and television mini series:Eye of the Needle was made into anacclaimed 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 (1986),The Third Twin – the rights for which were sold to CBS for $US1,400,000, a record price at the time – andThe Pillars of the Earth (2010) andWorld Without End (2012).
A video game adaptation titledKen Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, developed and published by German studio Daedalic Entertainment, was released in three parts from 2017 to 2018.
Follett had cameo roles as the valet inThe Third Twin and later as a merchant inThe Pillars of the Earth. In 2016,A Dangerous Fortune was also adapted.[19]
Pillars of the Earth andA Column of Fire have both been adapted into Danish-language musicals.Pillars of the Earth had its world premiere October 12, 2016 atØstre Gasværk Teater,Copenhagen.[20]A Column of Fire had its world premiere in 2019 atBellevue Teatret,Klampenborg.[21] Both of the musicals were written by Thomas Høg, Lasse Aagaard, and Sune Svanekier.
Follett is a member of various organisations that promote literacy and writing, and is actively involved in various organisations in his home town ofStevenage.
He is active in numerous Stevenage charities and was a governor of Roebuck Primary School for ten years, serving as the Chair of Governors for four of those years.
On 15 September 2010, Follett, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published inThe Guardian stating their opposition toPope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.[24]
He has also donated £25,000 to theYvette Cooper campaign in the2015 Labour Party (UK) leadership election,[25] as well as another £25,000 from his wifeBarbara Follett.[26]
Follett's archival papers are housed at theSaginaw Valley State University in Michigan, United States. They include outlines, first drafts, notes and correspondence, original manuscripts, and copies of early books now out of print.[27]
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Follett was married to Mary Emma Ruth Elson from 1968 to 1985 and had two children Emanuele (born 1968) and Marie-Claire (born 1973).[citation needed]
Follett became involved, during the late 1970s, in the activities of Britain'sLabour Party. In the course of his political activities, he metBarbara Broer, a Labour Party official, who became his second wife in 1984. She was elected as a Member ofParliament in 1997, representing Stevenage. She was re-elected in both 2001 and 2005, but did not stand in the 2010 general election.[37] Follett himself remains a prominent Labour supporter and fundraiser as well as a prominentBlairite.[citation needed]
During university, Follett rebelled against his parents' "puritanical faith" and became an atheist. As of 2022, he is "still an atheist, but I do have a spiritual life".[38]
He is an amateur musician playing bass guitar for Damn Right I Got the Blues, and appears occasionally with the folk group Clog Iron playing a bassbalalaika.[39][non-primary source needed]
Follett now lives inHertfordshire, England.[40]
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Apples Carstairs series (as Simon Myles)
Piers Roper series
Kingsbridge series
The Century Trilogy
Standalone novels
Non-fiction
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Follett rewrote this book after two translators had failed to produce a publishable version of the original French work. He has tried to keep it from being published under his name and disowns it entirely, entreating readers not to buy it.
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