About our guest
Ken Follett
Ken Follett is one of the world’s most widely read authors, with more than 198 million copies sold across over 80 countries and 40 languages. His ties to France are deep and longstanding: following the success of Eye of the Needle (1978, Edgar Award winner), he settled with his family in the South of France to devote himself fully to writing, returning there every year since the 1970s. Much of his work draws on French history, including The Pillars of the Earth, inspired by the work of French medieval historian Jean Gimpel; World Without End, written in collaboration with historians from Mont-Saint-Michel; and A Column of Fire, which recounts the French Wars of Religion and the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Following the Notre-Dame fire in 2019, he published a non-fiction work of the same name, donating all proceeds to the Fondation du Patrimoine for the cathedral’s restoration. Hugely popular among French readers, he was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and promoted to Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in November 2025. He became a French citizen on 13 November 2025. Ken Follett is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
