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The Golden Book award was granted in recognition of the popularity of Fall of Giants in Hungary. Follett said the sequel would be titled Winter of the World and the final part of the trilogy would be called Edge of Eternity. Winter of the World starts in Berlin in 1933 and ends in 1944 when the first Soviet nuclear bomb is made. Edge of Eternity will be set during the Cold War, he added.
By the time the trilogy is completed, it will add up to around a million words written over a period of seven years, Follett said.
He said he last visited Budapest eight years ago and this time arrived with his wife, a former Labour MP, and their son. Follett said he was pleased to receive the Golden Book award from the Libri book store which organised a popular vote among readers in May and granted the award to Follett?s Hungarian publisher GABO.
Head of the publisher Tamás Földes said GABO was in contact with many writers but Follett was especially good to work with and he had brought great success to the publisher.
Follett said Fall of Giants was a rather ?risky? undertaking because he set out to combine the sweeping power of history with a modern spy story and a thriller. He added that he would previously devote separate books to these different genres but readers of the Hungarian translation have showed that the mixture worked well.
Commenting on his work methods, Follett said he would often encounter exciting, interesting or strange news or films and usually continues thinking about them, trying to imagine ?what would have happened before and after?. He added that he usually collects material for his books for long periods, sometimes it can take up to three years to complete a long historic novel, such as The Pillars of Earth. Shorter novels can be completed in ?just? two years, he added.
After six months or a year of research, a 40-page initial story is drawn up which he shows to his editor and agent, as well as to experts and academics. After receiving feedback, he starts working out the action in more detail and filling the book with life. He said the key to success was to write about such basic subjects as love, war or revolutions, which interest people all over the world. He added that in spite of taking great care to be accurate, he did not wish to teach readers, but to entertain them. If they also learn something, that?s an added bonus, he added. ?It?s very exciting to learn this much about history,? Follett said and added that certain chapters of history he now sees as being much more complex than at the beginning of his career more than thirty years ago.
The 62-year-old author noted that the current financial crisis could also be the subject of popular stories but it is actually very difficult to write such a story. He said he had worked on one for a year but eventually decided to shelve the effort. The economic crisis ?does not involve car chases but lots of phone calls and nobody gets shot. It is difficult to write a financial thriller and there are not enough of them,? he added.
?I live in my imagination,? Follett said, adding that he would be unsuitable to become for instance an architect because his imagination comes to life in stories. He said he enjoys watching film adaptations of his books but he only visits the shooting as a spectator. ?The film industry is very complex and I do not tell them what to do,? he said. He added that he was especially satisfied with the series based on The Pillars of Earth which was mostly shot in Hungary. The characters appearing on the screen are not the same as those in the reader?s imagination but when an actor acts well, he or she can convince the spectator to transform the image, he said.
Follett said that even though he admired history, he enjoys living in the current age. He keeps up to date with modern technology, works simultaneously on two monitors and makes good use of the internet. He added that he was a fan of e-books and had asked for an e-book reader for Christmas.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: MTI
