Dan Brown Talks Inferno With Stephen Colbert

Posted on May 21, 2013

Bestselling author Dan Brown was a guest on The Colbert Report to talk about his new book Inferno. Stephen asked Dan why all his books have puzzles to solve in them and why they are so complicated. Dan explained, "I love puzzles. My dad is a big code guy, He's an internationally bestselling math textbook author. I grew up with codes and symbols in the house. We had treasure hunts and ciphers....it's a bit of a fixation." Stephen wanted to know if Dean likes anagrams (we all know he loves them, of course). Stephen then proceeded to make anagrams out of Dan's name, such as "Brand Now" and "Bran Down".

When asked why he wrote about Dante's Inferno, Dan said, "I'd never written about the literary arts.. what better piece of literature to base Inferno on? It was a thriller in its day...I wrote this with the hopes that people who love thriller and be inspired to discover or rediscovers one of the greatest books ever written."

Stephen also gave Dan lots of grief about writing unflattering things about the Catholic Church, asking him if he wrote about Dante's Inferno to experience where he is going after he dies. It's pretty funny: take a look: