The Welsh writer Ken Follett will donate the royalties from his book Notre Dame, published after the great cathedral burned down in 2019, to the restoration of another cathedral in France, AFP reports.
Notre Dame sold more than 113,000 copies worldwide, and Ken Follett is donating all of his royalties from the book, nearly EUR 150,000, to France’s Heritage Foundation for the restoration of the Saint-Samson Cathedral in Dol-de-Bretagne, the Foundation announced.
“We decided together to donate this amount for the restoration and security of another famous cathedral, the one in Dol-de-Bretagne,” reads the foundation’s press release.
Ken Follett is known mostly for his novel The Pillars of the Earth published in 1989, which recounts the construction of a gothic cathedral in 12th century England. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was one of the novel’s main sources of inspiration. A scene in another book written by Follett, A Column of Fire, takes place in the iconic gothic church as well.
The Saint-Samson Cathedral in Dol-de-Bretagne is in an advanced stage of degradation; the five-year restoration process, costing some EUR 2.4 million, started in 2019. The roof of the church is no longer watertight, and the granite is damaged, while some elements of the façade must be replaced or strengthened. The church has stained-glass windows from the 13th century, the oldest known in the region of Brittany, which are no longer properly protected as well.
Title image: Saint-Samson Cathedral and museum in Dol-de-Bretagne. Photo: Ingo Bartussek/Westend61
