British thriller author Ken Follet gets statue in Spain
MADRID (AFP) — Best-selling British thriller writer Ken Follett unveiled Thursday a life-size statue of himself in the northeastern Spanish town of Vitoria whose cathedral he says inspired his latest book.
"I am very flattered because it is the only statue of me in the world," he said after unveiling the bronze figure before dozens of applauding local residents, the Europa Press news agency reported.
Local officials commissioned the work from Basque sculptor Casto Solana. It lies in the medieval Plaza de Burullerias square, by the imposing Santa Maria cathedral.
Follet, 58, has said the cathedral's restoration work was exemplary and it inspired him to write "World Without End", a sequel to his 1989 top-selling novel "The Pillars of the Earth" about the building of a cathedral in England in the Middle Ages.
"The Pillars of the Earth" has been described as the novel most read by Spaniards for the past 20 years, with more than 5.5 million copies sold.
It was the number one book in Britain and Italy and spent six years on the German best seller list, according to Follet's Web site. It still sells about 100,000 copies a year in paperback in the United States.
The sequel, Follett's 18th book, features a photograph of the author taken inside Vitoria's cathedral. It has sold 750,000 copies in Spain since it went on sale in the country on December 28.
In an interview published Thursday in top-selling Spanish newspaper El Pais, Follet said his first ten books "were not good."
"My first best-seller was 'Eye of the Needle' and with this book I realized that it is indispensable to plan, investigate and slow down the story. I realized I was going too fast and that wasn't good," he told the paper.
