An eye for detail

DW: What is amazing about your books is the richness of details. There must be a lot of work behind them, a lot of research. Can you just tell us how you do that?

Ken Follett: Well, I read a lot of books, of course, and nearly everything that I need I can find in books. But I also look at maps, photographs and film, and for 'Edge of Eternity' I was also able to listen to audio tapes. You probably know that President Nixon and President Kennedy both tape recorded a lot of their meetings in the White House, and some of those tapes are on the internet now, so I was also able to listen to Kennedy and Nixon speaking in those meetings. And then, in addition, I interview people who have lived through these events if possible. And then, finally, I visit places, of course.

For example, for Germany, how did you do the research there? How did you check what life in East Germany was like?

Well, I made some visits, of course. I went to the Stasi Museum, and I visited locations where the wall used to be. There are several scenes in 'Edge of Eternity' where somebody tries to escape. That kind of scene is all about the physical detail; you know, how high is the wall, how far do they have to jump or what is the barrier like that they have to crash through? All of that stuff, those details, are terribly important. And that was quite difficult to research because - happily for all of us - the wall is no longer there. Fortunately, there are good records of all of this stuff. Lots of pictures of the wall and film and lots of detailed stories about how people escaped, so in the end I was able to get all the details I needed.

I found out that you've had witnesses to the events check the book and read the first draft. Can you tell us about that?

Well, I show my first draft to lots of different people - some historians and then some people who just know something about some aspect of the story but I was concerned, because the German family is so important in the trilogy. The big facts of history I can find out easily because they're in books, but little details are quite important.

It's interesting that even the names of the characters fit with the time periods in question.

Well yes, we had some discussions about the names. Of course one of the problems is that, a name, it has to be easy for say Americans or French people to pronounce. So, even if a name might be appropriate in German, it might be wrong in another language. And that's quite difficult actually. I find names quite difficult.

You've personally witnessed the time of the building of the wall and the falling of the wall, as well. How did you experience this period?

I remember the fall of the wall, and what I remember about that is that we didn't believe it was permanent. You know, sitting in London and, the same for people who were in the United States, we saw this happening, and we thought: Yes, but tomorrow tanks will arrive. We had seen this before in Hungary and Czechslovakia and Poland, where there had been a kind of rebellion against the Communist system but, in the end, the rebellion had been crushed, and a lot of us thought that the same thing was bound to happen again.

Your trilogy - "Fall of Giants," "Winter of the World" and "Edge of Eternity" - essentially covers the entire 20th century. What do you think of today's political situation? In commemorating the beginning of World War One, there has also been a discussion of whether we're at a similar point now.

Think about the idea of France and Germany going to war with each other. It's almost inconceivable. I mean, I know it's not really impossible, but you can't imagine circumstances in which that would happen - even though it happened twice in the first half of the 20th century. Now it just seems absurd: why would people be so foolish? We can't imagine it now. And that's a great step forward.

Your novels are sold worldwide, so there must be something that makes them interesting for a global audience. What do you think that is?

My stories are about quite fundamental things that affect everybody. I write about wars and revolutions, but also about love, marriage and raising children. The dramas in my books are things I think that most people can identify with. Everybody can sympathize with a character who goes onto a battlefield: A young man, and there's a war, and he goes onto the battlefield carrying a rifle. He's going to have to kill people, and they're going to try and kill him, and he's scared. Everybody can identify with that.