Ken Follett on cathedral tour to mark 25th anniversary publication of The Pillars of the Earth

03.02.14 | Sarah Shaffi - The Bookseller

Ken Follett is to tour five cathedrals in March and April to mark the 25th anniversary of the publication of The Pillars of the Earth (Pan).

Follett will deliver a lecture entitled Why Cathedrals? at cathedrals including Salisbury and Canterbury.

The Pillars of the Earth, first published in 1989, is set around the construction of a great cathedral.
Follett said: “Many times I have been asked why Pillars has such a big impact. There is no simple answer, because a novel is so complex. But I come back again and again to the people who built the cathedrals. Those men and women were by modern standards, poor and ignorant. They lived in wooden huts and slept on the floor. Yet they created the most beautiful and awesome buildings the world has ever known. Human beings have the capacity to rise above mundane circumstances and touch the eternal.

“That is what Pillars is about and, in the end, I think that may be why it has so profoundly touched the hearts of so many readers for so many years.”
Full tour details: Sunday 2nd March – Salisbury Cathedral; Tuesday 11th March – Lincoln Cathedral; Tuesday 18th March – Peterborough Cathedral; Wednesday 26th March – Canterbury Cathedral; Tuesday 1st April – Winchester Cathedral.
Novelist Sally Vickers did a cathedral tour last year for the paperback of The Cleaner of Chartres (Penguin).