- Born
- Alexander McCall Smith was born in Zimbabwe (called Southern Rhodesia at the time) and was educated there and in Scotland. He became a law professor in Scotland, and it was in this role that he first returned to Africa to work in Botswana, where he helped to set up a new law school at the University of Botswana. He is currently Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, but has been a visiting professor at a number of other universities elsewhere, including ones in Italy and the United States (where he has twice been visiting professor at SMU Law School in Dallas, Texas).
In addition to his university work, he is the vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the UK, the chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee, and a member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO.
Over the past twenty years, Smith has written more than fifty books, including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular children's books. In 1998, McCall Smith's detective novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, was published and received two Booker Judge's Special Recommendations. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series now numbers a total of four books (he is working on the fifth) and has been optioned for feature film. The series has been enthusiastically received throughout the world, and foreign language editions will be appearing in numerous countries.
Three of the books in the series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency; Tears of the Giraffe; and Morality for Beautiful Girls, have recently been published by Anchor Books. The fourth, The Kalahari Typing school for Men will be published by Pantheon in April 2003. McCall Smith has recently finished the first book in a new series featuring a lady detective, Isabel Dalhousie (Scottish father, American mother) the first title of which, Crushed Strawberry, will be published in London next year.
Today Alexander McCall Smith lives in Edinburgh with his wife Elizabeth (an Edinburgh doctor), their two daughters Lucy and Emily, and their cat Gordon. His hobbies include playing wind instruments, and he is the co-founder of an amateur orchestra called "The Really Terrible Orchestra" in which he plays the bassoon and his wife plays the flute.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Diane Stokes
- SpouseDr Elizabeth Parry(1982 - present) (2 children)
- A professor of Medical Law in Edinburgh, Scotland, born and spent childhood in Zimbabwe.
- He was awarded the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2007 Queen's New Years Honors List for his services to Literature.
- He was awarded the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2024 King's New Years Honours List for his services to Literature, to Academia and to Charity. He is a professor, author and academic in Edinburgh, Scotland.
- [on being asked why he doesn't explore social problems in his writing] That's not the only thing that an author writes about. That's an important thing to do, but it's not the only thing. I think that literature can say quite a lot about the problems of the world by adopting a positive approach. You can actually make profound comments on the world's suffering, but you do it in a slightly different way.
- I enjoy writing about women. I don't know why exactly I chose to have women characters. i think possibly it is the way women look at the world, given the difficulties they overcome in their working lives.
- I am very fond of art. It is a form of communication, principally about the communication of beauty. I don't have a great deal of time for [conceptual art]. I'm more interested in the ability of art to say something about beauty.
- I do find the depiction of ordinary life very attractive. I think that's it's because - if you want get a sense of life, of a place or a person - you have to, I suppose, look at the small parts. They create a sense of the living whole.
- Mma Ramotswe realized that her instinct had been right: this free beauty treatment came at the cost of a favour. Well, that was how the world worked, and she knew that she should not be surprised. Life was a matter of exchanges; you did things for people and they did things for you. And it had to be that way, because you started life with the assistance of the one who brought you into the world - the midwife - and you ended it with the assistance of those who laid you in the ground. Between those two extremes, you often needed the help of others; you needed their company, you needed their love, and they, in turn, needed those things from you.
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