At the age of 76, with over 30 million books sold worldwide in some 30 languages, Franco-Swiss author Christian Jacq remains indefatigable: every day, he works between 10 and 12 hours on his next novels, channelling his visceral passion for ancient Egypt. The writer, a unique case of a popular novelist who is also a leading Egyptologist, tells AFP that he "thinks in hieroglyphs". IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES