Alexander McCall Smith

{{Infobox writer

| honorific_prefix = Sir

| name = Alexander McCall Smith

| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE|FRSE}}

| image = AMcCS2018.png

| imagesize =

| caption = McCall Smith at Bloody Scotland in 2018

| pseudonym =

| birth_name = Rodney Alexander Alasdair McCall Smith

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1948|08|24|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = Professor of medical law, writer

| nationality = British, Zimbabwean

| citizenship = United Kingdom

| education = Christian Brothers College, Bulawayo

| alma_mater = University of Edinburgh (LLB, PhD, Emeritus Professor in the School of Law)

| period =

| genre = Fiction, crime fiction, children's books, academic non-fiction

| subject =

| website = {{oweb|alexandermccallsmith.co.uk}}

| module = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Alexander McCall Smith BBC Radio4 Bookclub 3 Jan 2010 b00pj4s2.flac|title={{center|Alexander McCall Smith's voice}}|type=speech|description={{center|Recorded January 2010 from the BBC Radio 4 programme Bookclub}}}}

}}

Sir Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE|FRSE}} (born 24 August 1948) is a Scottish legal scholar and author of fiction. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an expert on medical law and bioethics and served on related British and international committees. He has since become known as a fiction writer, with sales in English exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages.{{Cite news |first=Charlotte |last=Philby |title=Alexander McCall Smith: The No1 novelist's guide to Edinburgh |date=19 June 2010 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/alexander-mccall-smith-the-no1-novelists-guide-to-edinburgh-2004027.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100621052539/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/alexander-mccall-smith-the-no1-novelists-guide-to-edinburgh-2004027.html |archive-date=2010-06-21 |url-access=limited |url-status=live |newspaper=The Independent |access-date=26 August 2012}} He is known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.{{Cite news |title=Alexander McCall Smith talks about 'Corduroy Mansions' – interview |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/4986485/Alexander-McCall-Smith-talks-about-Corduroy-Mansions-interview.html |author=Grice, Elizabeth |newspaper=The Telegraph |access-date=15 October 2013|date= 13 March 2009 |quote=To say McCall Smith is a literary phenomenon doesn't quite describe what has happened.}} The "McCall" derives from his great-great-grandmother Bethea McCall, who married James Smith at Glencairn, Dumfries-shire, in 1833.National Records of Scotland OPR 826/20 73.

Early life

Rodney Alexander Alasdair McCall Smith was born in 1948 in Bulawayo in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), to British parents. He was the only son, having three elder sisters.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/23/alexander-mccall-smith-family-values|title = Alexander McCall Smith: My family on values| website=TheGuardian.com |date = 22 April 2011}} His father worked as a public prosecutor in Bulawayo.{{cite book |last=Hunter |first=Jeffrey W. |title=Contemporary Literary Criticism |year=2009 |publisher=Gale |location=Detroit, Michigan |isbn=978-1-4144-1944-2}} McCall Smith was educated at the Christian Brothers College in Bulawayo before moving to Scotland at age 17 to study law at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned his LLB{{cite web |url=https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/people/professor-alexander-mccall-smith |title=Professor Alexander McCall Smith |publisher=University of Edinburgh School of Law |access-date=28 June 2020}} and PhD degrees.{{cite web |url=http://www.justbuffalo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/alexander-mccall-smith-readers-guide-babel-just-buffalo-2012-04-12.pdf |title=Alexander McCall Smith: Reader's Guide |year=2012 |access-date=1 December 2017 |work=Just Buffalo Literary Center |location=Buffalo, New York}}{{cite news |last=Nicoll |first=Ruaridh |title=Handy Sandy |url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1207967,00.html|work=The Observer |date=2 May 2004 |access-date=12 May 2008}} He soon taught at Queen's University Belfast, and while teaching there he entered a literary competition: one a children's book and the other a novel for adults. He won in the children's category.

McCall Smith's paternal grandfather, George Marshall McCall Smith, born in Nairn, abandoned his wife and four children in Scotland and ran off with one of his patients to New Zealand in 1914. They settled in Rawene where he became the medical doctor and a community leader.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/renowned-scottish-author-alexander-mccall-smith-has-link-with-northland/3325LUJVV3PHB2TZMYLLOXQUIQ|title = Renowned Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith has link with Northland| date=14 August 2023 }}{{Cite web|url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4s32/smith-george-marshall-mccall|title = Smith, George Marshall McCall}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.hokiangahealth.org.nz/HHET2017/base2.php?page=GM_Smith|title=Hokianga Health - Hauora Hokianga|access-date=5 September 2021|archive-date=5 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905023008/http://www.hokiangahealth.org.nz/HHET2017/base2.php?page=GM_Smith|url-status=dead}}

Professional career

File:Alexander McCall Smith (48980730883) (cropped).jpg in 2019]]

McCall Smith returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found the law school and teach law at the University of Botswana. While there, he co-wrote The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992).{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x5GbwI8FezgC |title=The Criminal Law of Botswana |author1=Frimpong, Kwame |author2=McCall Smith, Alexander |isbn=978-0702126703 |publisher=Juta Publishers |location=South Africa |year=1992 |access-date=28 June 2016}}

He was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law.{{cite web|title= Edinburgh University web profile |url= https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/people/professor-sir-alexander-mccall-smith}} He retains a further involvement with the university in relation to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

McCall Smith is the former chairman of the Ethics Committee of the British Medical Journal (until 2002), the former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO. After achieving success as a writer, he gave up these commitments.

Honours

McCall Smith was appointed a CBE in the 2007 New Year Honours List issued at the end of December 2006 for services to literature.{{London Gazette |issue=58196 |date=30 December 2006 |supp=y |page=8}} In the 2024 New Year Honours he was appointed Knight Bachelor for services to Literature, to Academia and to Charity.{{London Gazette |issue=64269 |date=30 December 2023 |supp=y |page=N2}}

In June 2007, he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at a ceremony celebrating the tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh School of Law. In June 2015 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters at a graduation ceremony at the University of St Andrews.

Personal life

He settled in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1984. He and his wife Elizabeth, a physician, bought and renovated a large Victorian mansion in the Merchiston area of the city.{{Cite web |date=2023-08-12 |title=Alexander McCall Smith on finding himself in the infectious diseases unit |url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/arts_ents/23714461.alexander-mccall-smith-finding-infectious-diseases-unit/ |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=The Herald |language=en}} They lived there for almost 30 years, raising their two daughters. Nearby lived the authors J. K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, and Kate Atkinson.{{cite news|url=http://www.no1magazine.co.uk/interviews/ianrankin50.html |title=Ian Rankin |newspaper=No. 1 Magazine, Scotland's Glamorous Glossy |access-date=24 February 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301154818/http://www.no1magazine.co.uk/interviews/ianrankin50.html |archive-date=1 March 2014 |df=dmy }}

An amateur bassoonist, he co-founded The Really Terrible Orchestra. He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House,{{cite news |first1=Jonathon |last1=Clayton |first2=David |last2=Lister |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3599384.ece |newspaper=The Times |title=Alexander McCall Smith creates the No 1 Ladies' opera house |date=22 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513081641/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3599384.ece |archive-date=13 May 2008}} for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.{{YouTube|G9WwcmRBOzs|AFP news report on the "Okavango Macbeth"}}{{cite web |url=http://www.okavangomacbeth.com/ |title=The Okavango Macbeth |access-date=28 June 2016 |publisher=Goodmusic |year=2011}}

In 2009 he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at an awards ceremony at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa.{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url= https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/}}{{cite news|date=2009 |title=2009 Summit Highlights Photo |url= https://achievement.org/summit/2009/|quote= Alexander McCall Smith, creator of The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency, enlivened the Summit with his humor.}}

In 2012 he appeared in a documentary about the life and work of author W. Somerset Maugham, Revealing Mr. Maugham.{{cite web |last1=Guillen |first1=Michael |title=The Evening Class: FRAMELINE36: REVEALING MR. MAUGHAM (2012)—The Evening Class Interview With Michael House |url=https://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2012/06/frameline36-revealing-mr-maugham-2012.html |website=The Evening Class |access-date=21 July 2019 |date=22 June 2012}}

In 2014 McCall Smith purchased the Cairns of Coll, a chain of uninhabited islets in the Hebrides. He said, "I intend to do absolutely nothing with them, and to ensure that, after I am gone, they are held in trust, unspoilt and uninhabited, for the nation. I want them kept in perpetuity as a sanctuary for wildlife – for birds and seals and all the other creatures to which they are home."{{Cite web|url=http://www.scotsman.com/news/mccall-smith-vows-to-give-cairns-of-coll-back-1-3482771|title=McCall Smith vows to give Cairns of Coll back|website=www.scotsman.com|language=en|access-date=2017-03-17|archive-date=18 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318083414/http://www.scotsman.com/news/mccall-smith-vows-to-give-cairns-of-coll-back-1-3482771|url-status=dead}}

During a visit to New Zealand in 2014 McCall Smith visited Rawene, where his grandfather, George McCall Smith, ran the hospital for 34 years and created the Hokianga area health service.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11265724|title=Renowned Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith has link with Northland|date=2014-06-01|work=Northern Advocate|access-date=2019-06-05|language=en-NZ|issn=1170-0777}}

Writing career

Image:Alexander Mccall Smith.jpg

McCall Smith is a prolific author of fiction, with several series to his credit. He writes at a prodigious rate: "Even when travelling, he never loses a day, turning out between 2,000 and 3,000 words [a day] – but more like 5,000 words when at home in Edinburgh. His usual rate is 1,000 words an hour". He has gained the most fame for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe and set in Gaborone, Botswana. The first novel was published in 1998. By 2009, the series had sold more than 20 million copies in English editions.

According to his publisher in Edinburgh, "He was, until 2005, a professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh, but gave up the position to concentrate on his writing and now writes full time."{{cite web |url=http://www.birlinn.co.uk/Alexander-McCall-Smith/ |title=Alexander McCall Smith |access-date=28 June 2016 |publisher=Birlinn}}

He published 30 books in the 1980s and 1990s before he began the series that has brought him the world's notice. In 2008 he wrote a serialised online novel Corduroy Mansions, with the audio edition read by Andrew Sachs made available at the same pace as the daily publication. He wrote more than ten chapters ahead of publication, finding the experience of serialised publication to be "a frightening thing to create a novel while his readers watched. 'I am like a man on a tightrope.'"

In 2009 he donated the short story "Still Life" to Oxfam's "Ox-Tales" project, comprising four collections of stories written by 38 British authors. McCall Smith's story was published in the "Air" collection.[http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/books_oxtales.html Oxfam: Ox-Tales] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718005818/http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/books_oxtales.html |date=18 July 2011 }}

In 2020 he published a collection of poetry entitled In a Time of Distance: And Other Poems.{{cite web | last=Massie | first=Allan | title=Book review: In a Time of Distance, by Alexander McCall Smith | website=The Scotsman | date=2020-10-07 | url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/book-review-in-a-time-of-distance-by-alexander-mccall-smith-2995055 | access-date=2023-08-08}}

Bibliography

References

External links

[https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/people/professor-alexander-mccall-smith/ Prof. Alexander McCall Smith's homepage at the Law School, University of Edinburgh]
[http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mccallsmith/ Author's homepage at Random House]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120611040111/http://www.birlinn.co.uk/author/details/Alexander-McCall-Smith-48/ Author's homepage at Polygon & Birlinn Limited]
[http://www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk/ Author's homepage at Little, Brown]
{{IMDb name|1676691|Alexander McCall Smith}}
{{British council|id=alexander-mccall-smith|name=Alexander McCall Smith}}
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeSllEZjcnE/ Alexander McCall Smith interviewed on Conversations from Penn State]
[http://writetv.okstate.edu/ Write TV Public Television Interview with Alexander McCall Smith]
[https://www.powells.com/blog/interviews/red-bush-tea-with-alexander-mccall-smith-by-dave/ Interview with the author] at Powells.com