The first major deal out of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair involves an international laydown of Ken Follett’s next novel, Fall of Giants, which will be the first title in the author’s New Century Trilogy. The simultaneous six-country release—set for September 28, 2010—will coincide with the airing of an eight-hour Pillars of the Earth TV miniseries next fall.
Follett’s agent, Amy Berkower of Writers House, made the announcement. Fall of Giants will be published by Penguin in the U.S., Pan Macmillan in the U.K., Random House Mondadori in Spain and Latin America, Editions Laffont in France, Verlagsgruppe Lubbe GmbH & Co. KG in Germany and Mondadori Editore-Mondadori VE in Italy. The book will be published in hardcover in all markets.
Fall of Giants has an international scope, following five interrelated families—American, Russian, German, English and Welsh—through WW1 and the Russian Revolution. The second book, slated for 2012, will feature the children of the characters in Fall of Giants through the Depression and WW2; the third book, due out in 2014, will be about the next generation in the Cold War. Berkower said the trilogy is “a perfect canvas for Ken to exercise his considerable talents; an historical saga that combines the epic storytelling of The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End with Ken’s trademarked ability to deliver all the suspense and excitement of his classic spy novels.”
Pillars—itself a global phenomenon, having hit number one on bestseller lists in the U.S., U.K., Italy, Germany and Spain—is being made into an eight-hour TV miniseries directed by Sergio Mimia-Gezzan and starring Ian McShane and Donald Sutherland (Sutherland starred in the film version of Follett’s Eye of the Needle). It will air in Germany, Canada, Spain, Austria, Germany, Hungary and elsewhere next fall.
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