Between them they have five children, six grandchildren and two Labradors. He lives in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, with his wife Barbara, the former Labour Member of Parliament for Stevenage. Ken, who loves music almost as much as he loves books, is an enthusiastic bass guitar player. He is also active in many Stevenage charities and is President of the Stevenage Community Trust and Patron of Home-Start Hertfordshire.

He was chair of the National Year of Reading, a joint initiative between government and businesses. Ken has been active in numerous literacy charities and was president of Dyslexia Action for ten years. It is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth and is set around the year 1,000, when Kingsbridge was an Anglo-Saxon settlement threatened by Viking invaders. Ken’s new book, The Evening and the Morning, will be published in September 2020. World Without End, the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth, proved equally popular when it was published in 2007. It reached number one on best-seller lists everywhere and was turned into a major television series produced by Ridley Scott, which aired in 2010. In 1989, Ken’s epic novel about the building of a medieval cathedral, The Pillars of the Earth, was published. It remains one of Ken’s most popular books. A World War II thriller set in England, this book earned him the 1979 Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. Ken’s first major success came with the publication of Eye of the Needle in 1978. Subsequently, he worked for a small London publishing house, Everest Books, eventually becoming Deputy Managing Director. He started his career as a reporter, first with his hometown newspaper the South Wales Echo and then with the London Evening News.

Over 170 million copies of the 36 books he has written have been sold in over 80 countries and in 33 languages.īorn on June 5th, 1949 in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a tax inspector, Ken was educated at state schools and went on to graduate from University College, London, with an Honours degree in Philosophy – later to be made a Fellow of the College in 1995.

Ken Follett is one of the world’s most successful authors.

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