Who is Dan Brown?

Dan Brown was unknown until three years ago, but the publicity-shy us author who once dreamed of being a musician has become a media star ahead of the release of the film version of "The Da Vinci Code."

It was only last month, when he won a media-soaked trial in London over claims that he stole key elements of his blockbuster novel from an earlier book, that a few more details emerged about the writer, whose reclusiveness contrasts sharply with the high-profile success of his book.

Dressed in his trademark black polo shirt and jacket, the blond American appeared in court looking more like a school teacher, a job he held until a few years ago, than a sought-after literary celebrity.

But the life he has led is light years away from the glamor incarnated by other famed authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote.

Brown, 41, grew up on the campus of a posh boarding school in the eastern US state of New Hampshire, where his father taught maths and his mother played the organ in the school’s chapel, where Dan, the oldest of three sons, sang in the choir.

After leaving the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, Brown studied English and Spanish at Amherst College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1986.

Pursuing his dream of becoming a singer-songwriter and pianist, Brown moved to Hollywood in 1991 and produced a children’s disc and a self-published adult record, which sold only a few hundred copies each.

But it was in Los Angeles that he met Blythe Newlon, an illustrator 12 years his senior who worked for a composers’ trade union and whom he would marry in 1997, after the couple returned to New Hampshire to teach English at his old school.

During the copyright trial in London, Brown revealed that it was his wife who had played a key role in helping him research "The Da Vinci Code," which he dedicated to her.

In 1998, after co-authoring a book with his wife, he published his first novel, "Digital Fortress," born out of his interest in code-breaking and covert government agencies.

He followed it two years later with "Angels and Demons" and then with "Deception Point," but none of those books initially sold more than 10,000 copies.

It was with the publication of his fourth novel, "The Da Vinci Code," and its protagonist Robert Langdon, a "symbology" professor, that his life would change forever.

The thriller became a huge best-seller, hitting the top of the New York Times best-seller list during its first week of release in 2003 and going on to become one of the most popular books of all time.

Three years later, the novel has been translated into 44 languages and has sold some 50 million copies while whipping up an unprecedented storm over its controversial plot, which focuses on an alleged conspiracy by the Catholic Church to hide the fact that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had children.

While marketing the book as fiction, Brown states in his preface that his descriptions of artwork, documents and rituals "are accurate," alarming the Church, which fears that readers could take the premise of the book as gospel.

But, although he has been transformed into a multi-millionaire literary heavyweight and named one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine, Brown’s friends say he is unspoiled by his sudden enormous success.

"He is the same person he was two years ago," his longtime friend and editor Jason Kaufman told the Boston Globe. "It’s harder for him to walk down the street, but he is remarkably levelheaded about his life."

Brown, who on his website lists his favorite authors as "John Steinbeck for his descriptions, Robert Ludlum for his plotting and Shakespeare for his wordplay," is already working on his next novel.

The book again features Langdon as its hero in a mystery that is set in Washington and reportedly focuses on the secret world of Freemasonry.

"This new novel explores the hidden history of our nation’s capital," he says. – AFP