Alexander McCall Smith

Author photo Graham Clark

Alexander McCall Smith was born in Zimbabwe in 1948 and was educated there and in Scotland. He enjoyed a distinguished career as Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, and it was in this role that he first returned to Africa to work in Botswana and Swaziland. In 2005, he left the University of Edinburgh to concentrate on his writing. He is now the author of over sixty books, ranging from specialist legal and medical titles to several hugely popular adult fiction series, and from children's novels to collections of stories and retellings of African folktales.

In 1999 THE NO 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY was published. Its heroine, Precious Ramotswe, the founder of Botswana’s first and only detective agency run by women, soon captivated readers. The book received two Booker Judges’ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the 'International Books of the Year and the Millennium' by the Times Literary Supplement.

The sequel, TEARS OF THE GIRAFFE, was voted one of the Guardian top ten fiction paperbacks of the year 2000. But it was in America that the series really began to take off. With the US mass-market publication in 2002 of the first three titles, success was instant. As a BookSense pick (independent booksellers), and Amy Tan’s book club choice on NBC’s Today show, THE NO 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY entered the New York Times Bestseller list. English language sales of the series currently exceed 15 million and translation rights have so far been sold in 37 languages.

The books were the subject of a BBC documentary in Summer 2003, filmed in Botswana and featuring the author. Anthony Minghella adapted the first title in the series for television with Richard Curtis and it appeared on BBC1 at Easter 2008 to great acclaim. HBO and the BBC have commissioned a further 13 episodes, which will be screened in 2009 and 2010.

2003 and 2004 saw the publication a new series featuring the unnaturally tall and exceedingly memorable Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and the haplessness of Inspector Clouseau. His adventures with his equally ridiculous colleagues, Professors Florianus Prinzel and Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer, all taking place in the rarefied world of the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, were described in three instalments: PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS, THE FINER POINTS OF SAUSAGE DOGS and AT THE VILLA OF REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES. All three books have now been collected into one volume, THE TWO AND A HALF PILLARS OF WISDOM, published by Abacus in the UK, and a fourth novel is in progress.

Also published in 2004 was THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB, the first in a series of novels set in Edinburgh with a new sleuthing heroine, the philosopher Isabel Dalhousie - 'the No. 2 Lady Detective... Anyone who loves Precious cannot fail to be charmed', enthused the Daily Mail. FRIENDS, LOVERS, CHOCOLATE, THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TO RAIN, THE CAREFUL USE OF COMPLIMENTS and THE COMFORT OF SATURDAYS have followed.

Alexander McCall Smith has also published five novels in the SCOTLAND STREET series (44 SCOTLAND STREET, ESPRESSO TALES, LOVE OVER SCOTLAND, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BERTIE and THE UNBEARBALE LIGHTNESS OF SCONES), all of which appeared initially in daily serial form for The Scotsman newspaper.

In 2008 Alexander McCall Smith's first online novel, CORDUROY MANSIONS, began on the Daily Telegraph's website www.telegraph.co.uk. Episodes can be downloaded as an audio podcast read by Andrew Sachs.

His short story collections include HEAVENLY DATE AND OTHER FLIRTATIONS and THE GIRL WHO MARRIED A LION, a collection of African folktales. The folktales have also been published in two illustrated children's editions, and he is the author of many other children's titles, including the HARRIET BEAN series, the AKIMBO series (the latest of which is AKIMBO AND THE SNAKES) and the MAX AND MADDY series.

Winner of three Author of the Year awards in 2004 (British Book Awards, Booksellers' Association and Waterstones), Alexander McCall Smith has served as Vice-Chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom; a member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO; Chairman of the Ethics Committee of the British Medical Journal and Chairman of the Ethics Committee of the Roslin Institute.

He plays in an amateur orchestra, The Really Terrible Orchestra, which he co-founded with his wife.

In 2007 Alexander was awarded a CBE for his services to literature.

It is a troublesome fact on which even Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi agree: there are things that men know and ladies do not, and vice versa. It is unfortunate, for example, when Mma Ramotswe's newest client is the big-shot owner of the ailing Kalahari Swoopers, that one thing lady detectives know very little about is football. And when the glamorous Violet Sephotho sets her sights on Mma Makutsi's unsuspecting fiance, it becomes exasperatingly clear that some men do not know how to recognise a ruthless Jezebel even when she is bouncing up and down on the best bed in the Double Comfort Furniture Shop. In her attempt to foster understanding between the sexes and find the traitor on Mr Football's team, Mma Ramotswe ventures into new territory, drinks tea in unfamiliar kitchens and learns to trust in the observational powers of small boys. And, as wise and warm-hearted as his heroine, Alexander McCall Smith reminds us that we must dig deep to uncover the goodness of the human heart.