Katherine MacAlister meets the top author whose books have been translated into 40 languages

Alexander McCall Smith is an industry in itself. The famous author has written around 80 books, which have been translated into over 40 languages and are worldwide bestsellers.

The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has sold over 20 million copies alone and he has several series running concurrently. In short he is a busy man.

The 67-year-old therefore wakes up at 4am every morning to start writing and then goes back to bed when he’s finished. Managing 1,000 words an hour, he knows he’s blessed, and mentions poor Flaubert who only managed five words a day, “but jolly good ones.”

It is unsurprising, therefore, that he received a CBE for services to literature in 2007. Such a prolific output also means McCall Smith finishes four to five books a year, often several at a time. “I have to be quite tactful about it but every writer has his own pace,” he says.

His current series includes 44 Scotland Street, the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, the Sunday Philosophy Club, the von Igelfeld, the new Corduroy Mansions novels and a brand new series for children School Ship Tobermory.

Explaining his fluency, he continues: “I don’t really have to think about what happens because my subconscious has already got it all figured out, even if it means that things happen in the books that I hadn’t envisaged, things that can change the plot.”

That he has the time then to drop into Chipping Norton from his home town of Edinburgh is a great privilege, but McCall Smith says its all grist to the mill.

“Writers rely on a bank of experiences, but as I am constantly meeting people in all their guises, doing all the things that humanity does, I just file it all away. But of course you need to keep topping up the bank, so I keep travelling.”

Having been brought up in Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, later returning to set up the law school at the University of Botswana, McCall Smith still has that glorious sense of wanderlust which sees him travelling in the next few months to the US, Canada,Thailand, India and Australia, where his books are as beloved as here.

However, having been discovered when he was “quite long in the tooth”, McCall Smith has taken his newfound fame in his stride.

Before he hit the big time, McCall Smith wrote children’s books and collections of short stories for 20 years in his spare time, his real job as Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh being something he enjoyed enormously.

He was also the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee, former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO.

He admits his success has afforded him a freedom to explore the world, see things and meet people that would never have been possible “It means I can write what I want which is enormously liberating. I no longer worry about whether I’m writing something that no one wants to read or whether it’s hopelessly out-of-fashion. I just take great pleasure from the fact that people are reading my books.”

So would he have been able to write about Africa so lucidly if he hadn’t been brought up there? “No, I doubt it. I use my childhood experiences, albeit my subconscious, and writing has been a wonderful way to celebrate Africa.

But most of my books are set elsewhere, mainly in Scotland, these days.”

Despite his travels, McCall Smith will remain in Scotland. “I love it there. The Scottish are very friendly too you know,” he adds. “But you live in Oxford, another lovely place,” he says.

His daughter lives on Osney Island with her husband and small son, so McCall Smith and his wife are regular visitors, and know The Punter well.

In the meantime, McCall Smith will be popping into Jaffe & Neale Bookshop tomorrow to discuss his new children’s series School Ship Tobermory.

GO ALONG
Alexander McCall Smith will be speaking at the Methodist Church in Chipping Norton tomorrow night to discuss his bestselling series and its influences. See jaffeandneale.co.uk