Ken Follett

Ken Follett (born 5 June 1949) is a Welsh-born British author of thrillers and historical novels, best known for Eye of the Needle (1978) and The Pillars of the Earth (1989).

Kenneth Martin Follett was born in Cardiff and read philosophy at University College London from 1967 to 1970. He trained as a reporter on the South Wales Echo and then worked for the London Evening News before moving into publishing as deputy managing director of Everest Books. His first books appeared under pseudonyms including Simon Myles, Zachary Stone, Bernard L. Ross and Martin Martinsen.

His breakthrough was the spy thriller Eye of the Needle, first published in May 1978 and also known as Storm Island. It won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1979 and has sold more than 10 million copies. Thrillers including Triple (1979), The Key to Rebecca (1980), The Man from St. Petersburg (1982) and Night Over Water (1991) followed. The Pillars of the Earth, set around the building of a cathedral in twelfth-century England, was published by Macmillan in 1989 and became his best-selling book; it led to the Kingsbridge novels World Without End (2007), A Column of Fire (2017), The Evening and the Morning (2020) and The Armour of Light (2023). The Century Trilogy ran from Fall of Giants (2010) to Edge of Eternity (2014). Wikipedia puts his total sales at nearly 200 million and notes that he gained French citizenship in November 2025.

For collectors. His British first edition of 1978 carried the title Storm Island; Wikipedia names Macdonald and Jane's as its publisher, although its text also mentions Penguin, so check the imprint. The Pillars of the Earth first appeared from Macmillan in the UK in 1989; it was chosen for Oprah's Book Club in 2007 and adapted as a television miniseries in 2010.