He began writing fiction on the side and took a position at Everest Books in 1974 in order to learn more about the publishing industry. As a student in the 1960s, he was involved in political activities, including protests against the Vietnam War and opposition to apartheid in South Africa.Īfter graduating from college, Follett worked as a journalist and pop music critic in Cardiff and London. During the years in London, Follett, who was bored in school, began playing guitar and learning songs popularized by Bob Dylan and the Beatles.įollett was educated at University College, where he studied philosophy and received a bachelor of arts degree in 1970.

Follett and his family moved from Wales to London when the author was ten years old. Ken Follett was born June 5, 1949, in Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales, to Martin D.

Kingsbridge Cathedral, a towering achievement in its time turns out to be structurally unsound, and the current generation must find ways to rebuild and repair it based on better knowledge and the perspective of years. World Without End is also a story about progress and its effects.

World Without End is set two hundred years later in the same town, with the cathedral in place and with some of the same families present several generations later, as we can tell by surnames like Builder or Barber that, like the professions they designate, descend from father to son. In Pillars, set in twelfth-century England, Follett told the story of the people who built a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. Ken Follett's novel World Without End is the companion volume to his earlier book, The Pillars of the Earth, published in 1989.

A world without end book