Alexander McCall Smith

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2005

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Alexander McCall Smith. Alexander McCall Smith was an established professor of law, an expert on ethics and a part time musician when, at the age of 50, he wrote the book that turned his life on its head. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency became a word of mouth best-seller. He has now written a series of books featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe, a 'traditionally built' Botswanan woman who spends as much time dealing with the trials of everyday life as solving crime. Her cases have included absent husbands, imposter fathers and missing children - all resolved using common sense and underpinned with a strong sense of the importance of traditional African social values.

Alexander McCall Smith's fascination with, and devotion to, Africa is not surprising - he was born and brought up in Zimbabwe - then Southern Rhodesia - only moving to Britain when he began his legal studies. He visits Botswana every year. Even as a child he was a keen writer, and he was a published author for many years before he devised his most celebrated creation. His books are now printed in more than 30 languages and in 2004 he was named the Booksellers' Association Author of the Year.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Soave sia il Vento by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: Collection by W H Auden Luxury: A handmade pair of shoes

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My Kostaway this week is an author at the age of 50 he published the first of a series of books
0:35.0	that were to make him famous. Up until then he led a respectable academic life as a lecturer
0:40.3	and then professor in law and as the author of less successful comic fiction and
0:44.8	legal monographs including the forensic aspects of sleep. The book that
0:49.6	changed all that is called the number one ladies detective agency and has as its
0:54.0	heroine a Botswan and lady of traditional build called precious remotswe. The
0:59.2	British readership of her
1:05.0	ownership of her authors previous books.
1:07.0	But bit by bit in America and in the wake of the horror of 9-11,
1:11.0	the soothing, honest and witty story of good people the six books on the same theme and last year their creator was made author of the year at the
1:24.4	British Book Awards.
1:26.2	There is he says a role for literature which affirms without being sentimental or romanticizing too much. He is Alexander McCall Smith. You are,
1:37.4	Sandy, a publishing phenomenon really. I mean it must have turned your life on its
1:42.3	head this thing that's happened to you.
1:44.0	Yes it did it was totally unexpected indeed even today I have to pinch myself to
1:50.9	realize that it's happened.
1:52.6	But when did it all begin?
1:54.0	When did you first feel Mara Motzwe coming on, as it were?
1:58.0	Well, I suppose the very beginning of the whole thing goes back to 1980 when I went across to Botswana in a number of occasions to visit friends of mine and on one particular occasion I went with my hostess to visit somebody in the village who was going to give them a chicken for lunch the next day.
2:17.0	And we went off to see this woman and I shall always remember her.
	...

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