Dan Brown
If your faith is shaken to the core by a thriller – I think you need to look at your faith – and what happened with the book – the reason it was so, so controversial – I guess, is the only word – is that for a lot of people the story I told in that novel made more rational sense than the story they heard in Sunday School – and certainly for me – the story I told in The Da Vinci Code makes more logical sense to me – than the story I learned in Sunday School – and that’s what was so dangerous.

Stephen Sackur
But the book…

Dan Brown
If the book had sold ten copies, nobody would have worried about it.

Stephen Sackur
Well that’s true – and far from selling ten – it sold hundreds of millions in the end – and it’s been translated all around the world. But one of the problems that those defending the Christian story had with the book was that they felt you melded fact and fiction in a way that was completely unreasonable and led many readers to be deeply confused about where the lines between fact and fiction

Dan Brown
Sure…

Stephen Sackur
really were…

Dan Brown
That’s precisely what I do – I do something very intentional with these books and that is to blend the line between fact and fiction and what I try very hard to do is to take real documents, real art, real history

Stephen Sackur
Hmmm…

Dan Brown
and interweave fictional characters, discussing them – and they have their own ideas, and they debate these topics

Stephen Sackur
Yes but your authorial voice is telling us – I think – maybe you’ll correct me if you feel I’m wrong – but in The Da Vinci Code telling us you believed in certain things like this secretive movement the Priory of Sion

Dan Brown
Sure…

Stephen Sackur
in France which in the book becomes a movement that is trying to sort of deliver in the power of descendants of Jesus Christ

Dan Brown
Yes

Stephen Sackur
in a very secretive way – the feeling one gets from the book is that you actually believe that were true.

Dan Brown
And I personally do believe that is true – I spent a long time researching this book

Stephen Sackur
But you know this has been thoroughly debunked

Dan Brown
Who’s to say? The premise of the book is that history as we know it is not accurate – of course you’re going to get historians saying it’s not accurate.

Stephen Sackur
But this is so germane to the times we live in today – you know – you’re suggesting that’s what’s true and what’s not isn’t always or maybe ever truly decipherable. But, but, it is beyond doubt – is it not – that this idea of a secretive Priory of Sion was a hoax, developed by a French bloke in the 1950s – I think his name was Monsieur Plantard

Dan Brown
Yes…

Stephen Sackur
And – heh – you know – the research is in, and it was a hoax – and you were maybe hoaxed by it – but isn’t it time for you to say “Yeah: Well I Got That Wrong…”

Dan Brown
I’m speaking about my beliefs of the story of Jesus Christ – how I decide to tell the story – it’s a creative art. I can pull what I want from history – some of it’s real, some of it’s not – and I don’t know enough about the Priory of Sion at this point from everything that’s been published on both sides to say for a fact – that it’s true or hoax – I actually have no idea…

Stephen Sackur
Hmmm…

Dan Brown
At the time I wrote the book, I really did believe it was true.

Stephen Sackur
Have your ideas about it and your further research into it changed your mind in any way – since you wrote The Da Vinci Code?

Dan Brown
I haven’t – It hasn’t – I’ve moved on from that story and

Stephen Sackur
And left it behind…

Dan Brown
I just left it behind.

Stephen Sackur
Hmmm…

Dan Brown
It’s important to remember – that these books – I’m not trying to convince anyone of an idea, I’m trying to write an enjoyable book that gets people talking, and so if people decide to believe the story in The Da Vinci Code – great; if they decide to say that this is just a thriller and crazy talk

Stephen Sackur
Hmmm…

Dan Brown
that’s fine too – er, it really is just intended to get people to thinking about why they believe in what they believe – and this idea of fake news now, er, is absolutely germane to the conversation – how do you know what is true

Stephen Sackur
Yeah…

Dan Brown
and what is false

Stephen Sackur
But – do you – or do you not – believe there is truth and falsehood and that we human beings have a duty to differentiate between the two?

Dan Brown
I think that we do have a duty to differentiate – as historians – as creative novelists – I think that we have the duty to get people to go and ask questions – and find their own sources.