Ken Follet: Thrillist to Historical Fictionist
Ken Follet is one of my absolute favourite authors. He is the writer that got me into reading in the first place and for that, I will be ever grateful. He is most famous for his early career writing thrillers in the 1980s. After gaining some recognition he decided to take a big risk and branch out to historical fiction in the latter part of the decade. His mediaeval epic, The Pillars of the Earth, was well received among his audience, topped charts around the world and was on The New York Times Best Seller list for eighteen consecutive weeks. This jump-started his career of writing historical fiction, a genre which he ever since then has continued to enrich with his brilliant novels.
Kenneth Follet was born in Cardiff in 1949, making him 75 years old today. He is said to have developed an interest in reading due to his folks' ban from going to the movies. His education didn’t engage him very much until he entered his teenage years. Then,at ten, he alongside his family moved to London, where Follet began a proper education. First, he went to Grammar School and then he applied to Poole Technical College. He went on to pursue a higher education in philosophy at University College London in 1967. It was during his residency at the University that he met his wife, Mary Elson. They got married in 1968 and Mary bore their first child the very same year.
Follet began his journey in journalism after graduating from University, where he decided to take a three-month-long post-graduate course in 1970. He became a trainee reporter for the South Wales Echo in Cardiff. After having worked as a trainee for about 3 years, and as he was to become a father of two, he returned to London to work for the Evening News instead. There he found the work of a reporter to be a bit dull and therefore decided to go into publishing instead. He joined a small publisher as a managing director, but in order to get some extra income to repair his car he also started writing fiction in his spare time.. This steamrolled his love for writing.
It was not until the publication of his novel Eye of the Needle that Follet garnered some of his today's immense popularity. He continued to write, most of his works were spy thrillers, and experienced an overall great success; often reaching high altitudes on The New York Times Best Seller List and even getting some of his works adapted to the big screen. In 1989, he surprised his audience and publishers by producing his first historical fiction novel, titled The Pillars of the Earth, set in mediaeval Europe and centred around the building of the Kingsbridge cathedral. Follet poured a lot of heart and soul into this novel. The novel marked the first time Follet refused his publisher's advice to write another successful thriller and instead wrote about something that interested him, which happened to be history and architecture.
This brings forth the Kingsbridge series that so many love. The Pillars of the Earth quickly became his best-selling novel, but he hesitated to write a sequel until 2007. He eventually publishes World Without End, which follows the descendants of the main characters in the previous novel, something he also does with The Century Trilogy a few years later. From this another three novels emerge making it a five-book long series. To solidify the Kingsbridge series success it was not only adapted into a TV miniseries, but a board game and a video game as well
After writing World Without End, Follet began on The Century Trilogy, which is my personal favourite. It started with Fall of Giants, continued with Winter of the World, and meets its end with Edge of Eternity. The trilogy follows five families from different countries and their experiences through major historical and life-changing events. I still remember the summer I picked out Fall of Giants from my dad’s huge box of old books, and the curiosity that this giant book emitted. I recall spending the whole summer reading it and when I was finished, we immediately searched for the sequel. These books were, to an extent, difficult to read as they were both long and contained a few tricky words, but the intrigue made up for it.
Currently, I have read seven of Follet’s novels: Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, Edge of Eternity, The Pillars of the Earth, A Dangerous Fortune, Whiteout and The Man from St. Petersburg. I would like to continue the Pillars of the Earth series and continue to read more of his thrillers. To me, Ken Follet is an absolutely brilliant author who puts both time and effort into his stories. I would definitely recommend his novels to someone who enjoys history and the suspense of a good thriller, because this would be right up your alley.
