Photography: Bookbub
Back in 2003, a book called The Da Vinci Code arrived not only to become a bestseller and shake the foundations of the Church, but also to ignite a craze for literature that delved into a world of secrets. This triumph belongs to a certain American author who has become one of the most bestselling writers of the millennium. Let's decipher the enigmas through the biography and best books of Dan Brown.
Dan Brown Biography
Photography: República GT
Born on June 22, 1964 in Exeter, a town in New Hampshire, in the United States, Brown is the son of a mathematician and a composer of sacred music, a perfect combination for an author who in the early 2000s would revolutionize Christian circles to through some perhaps not so spiritual enigmas.
Brown studied at Phillips Exeter Academy and Amherst College, though he also lived for a time in Spain , specifically in the Asturian city of Gijón. He also lived in Seville, where he studied at the university, although the university administration has stated that there are no records of Brown as a student, perhaps because he enrolled in an Art History course during the summer. This knowledge, despite suggesting a not-so-distant future, initially led him to produce children's music recordings under the Delliance label.
In 1991, he moved to Hollywood, California, where he continued his career as a pianist while working as an English and Spanish teacher. It was during this time that he met his future wife, Blythe Newlon , fifteen years his senior. During the first half of the 90s, Brown continued recording songs and albums, including one under the name Angels & Demons (does that name ring a bell?).
However, Brown's passion for literature blossomed in the summer of 1993 during a stay on a beach in Tahiti. It was there that he discovered Sidney Sheldon's novel, The Doomsday Conspiracy , a book that inspired the future writer to reinvent his career path by beginning work on his first novel, Digital Fortress , a technological thriller that was panned by critics but became a notable commercial success. This first book was followed by Angels & Demons in 2000, which introduced a Robert Langdon obsessed with religious symbolism and facing off against the Illuminati, the main custodians of some of history's darkest secrets.
A prelude to the boom that in 2003 would be The Da Vinci Code , a bestseller that despite its certain historical errors managed to shake the Catholic community by alleging facts such as the true nature of the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, the modification of the Gospels or the real location of the Holy Grail.
A book that attracted the attention of the whole world and represented a first general immersion in the bibliography of Dan Brown.
Best Dan Brown Books
The Da Vinci Code
Published in 2003, The Da Vinci Code tells the story of the alliance between religious symbology professor Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu , granddaughter of an Illuminati member whose murder uncovers the existence of a Holy Grail. The search for the Grail reveals numerous secrets of Christian history based on a reinterpretation of the Last Supper or a reshaping of the biblical narrative. With over 80 million copies sold , The Da Vinci Code is the most successful of the five-book series featuring Robert Langdon and was adapted into a film in 2006 starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou . Despite numerous criticisms from both the Church and historians, The Da Vinci Code remains one of the best-selling books of all time and a landmark of historical fiction, a genre that experienced a resurgence during the first decade of the 21st century.
Angels and Demons
Although published before The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons became a success thanks to the discovery of the 2003 bestseller. Robert Langdon once again stars in this thriller, in which he is summoned by a Swiss research center after the discovery of a man's body with a strange symbol branded onto his skin. This is the first clue to the return of the Illuminati, who threaten to detonate a bomb in the heart of the Vatican . The novel, an attempt by Brown to unite two seemingly opposite (or perhaps not so opposite) concepts like science and religion, achieved even greater sales success after the publication of The Da Vinci Code, despite being published in 2000. It was adapted into a film in 2009, again with Tom Hanks reprising his role as Langdon.
The lost symbol
The third book starring Robert Langdon was published in 2009, becoming the best-selling book in a single day , a sign of the furor that Brown's work caused in the first decade of the 2000s. Set this time in the United States, more specifically in Washington DC, The Lost Symbol leads Langdon to follow the clues of the Masonic Pyramid buried, according to legend, somewhere in the city.
Digital strength
Despite lukewarm initial reviews (especially due to the setting and descriptions of Seville, the city where much of the plot unfolds), Digital Fortress , Brown's first book published in 1998, went on to become one of Dan Brown's most famous works . A bestseller, its protagonist is Susan Fletcher, a cryptologist for the secretive NSA (National Security Agency) who must investigate the meaning of a top-secret code that no system can decipher except for a man recently murdered in Seville.
The conspiracy
Published in 2001, The Conspirator was Dan Brown's second novel in which Robert Langdon was not the protagonist. Instead, we find Rachel Sexton, an intelligence analyst who must uncover the deceptions surrounding the appearance of a mysterious space artifact in the Arctic, an event that could favor the victory of the new US president in the upcoming elections.
What are your favorite Dan Brown books?