Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith
Born R. Alexander McCall Smith
(1948-08-24) 24 August 1948
Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia
Occupation Writer, professor
Nationality British
Citizenship United Kingdom
Genre Fiction, Crime fiction, Children's books, Academic non-fiction
Alexander McCall Smith's voice
Recorded January 2010 from the BBC Radio 4 programme Bookclub
Website
www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk

R. Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE (born 24 August 1948), is a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction. He is most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.[1] "McCall" is not a middle name: his surname is "McCall Smith".[2][3][4]

Biography

Alexander McCall Smith signing books in Helsinki April 2007

Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), where his father worked as a public prosecutor.[5] He was educated at the Christian Brothers College before moving to Scotland to study law at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned his PhD in law.[6] 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, and published 30 books in the 1980s and 1990s.[5]

He returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found and teach law at the University of Botswana. While there, he co-wrote what remains the only book on the country's legal system, The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992).[7] He returned in 1984 to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth, a physician, and their two daughters Lucy and Emily (he lives close to the authors J. K. Rowling, Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson).[8] He was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh at one time and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law. He retains a further involvement with the University in relation to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

He is the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee (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. He was appointed a CBE in the December 2006 New Year's Honours List for services to literature.[9] 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.

He is an amateur bassoonist, and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra. He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House,[10] for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.[11][12] He is also the author of a testimonial in The Future of the NHS (2006).[13]

In 2009, he donated the short story Still Life to Oxfam's "Ox-Tales" project—four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. McCall Smith's story was published in the "Air" collection.[14] Former First Lady of the United States Laura Bush is a big fan of McCall Smith's, as is Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.[15]

Bibliography

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

44 Scotland Street series

  • 2005: 44 Scotland Street
  • 2005: Espresso Tales
  • 2006: Love Over Scotland
  • 2007: The World According to Bertie
  • 2008: The Unbearable Lightness of Scones
  • 2010: The Importance of Being Seven
  • 2011: Bertie Plays The Blues
  • 2012: Sunshine on Scotland Street
  • 2013: Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers
  • 2015: The Revolving Door of Life

The Sunday Philosophy Club series

also known as Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries

Corduroy Mansions

Professor Dr von Igelfeld Entertainments

Other novels

  • 2008: La's Orchestra Saves the World
  • 2012: Trains and Lovers
  • 2014: The Forever Girl
  • 2014: Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party
  • 2015: Emma: A Modern Retelling

Short stories

  • 2011: "The Strange Story of Bobby Box" (published in the young adult anthology: What You Wish For)

Anthologies

  • 1991: Children of Wax: African Folk Tales
  • 1995: Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations
  • 2004: The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa

Children's novels

  • 1980: The White Hippo
  • 1984: The Perfect Hamburger
  • 1988: Alix and the Tigers
  • 1990: The Tin Dog
  • 1991: Calculator Annie
  • 1991: The Popcorn Pirates
  • 1992: The Doughnut Ring
  • 1994: Paddy and the Ratcatcher
  • 1995: The Muscle Machine
  • 1996: The Bubblegum Tree
  • 1997: The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean
  • 2000: Teacher Trouble
  • 2006: Dream Angus

Akimbo

  • 1992: Akimbo and the Lions
  • 1993: Akimbo and the Crocodile Man
  • 2005: Akimbo and the Elephants
  • 2006: Akimbo and the Snakes
  • 2008: Akimbo and the Baboons

Harriet Bean

  • 1993: The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean
  • 1990: The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean
  • 1991: Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats

Max & Maddy

  • 1997: Max & Maddy and the Bursting Balloons Mystery
  • 1999: Max & Maddy and the Chocolate Money Mystery

Young Precious Ramotswe

  • 2010: Precious and the Puggies[17] (republished in 2011 as: Precious and the Monkeys)
  • 2012: Precious and the Mystery of Meerkat Hill
  • 2012: The Great Cake Mystery
  • 2013: Precious and the Missing Lion

Academic texts

  • 1978: Power and Manoeuvrability (with Tony Carty)
  • 1983: Law and Medical Ethics (with J. Kenyon Mason) (this text has gone through several editions: an eighth, by Mason and Graeme Laurie, was published in 2010; McCall Smith contributed to the first six editions)
  • 1987: Butterworths Medico-Legal Encyclopaedia (with J. Kenyon Mason)
  • 1990: Family Rights: Family Law and Medical Advances (with Elaine Sutherland)
  • 1991: All About Drink and Drug Abuse (educational text)
  • 1992: The Criminal Law of Botswana (with Kwame Frimpong)
  • 1993: The Duty to Rescue (with Michael Menlowe, 1993)
  • 1992: Scots Criminal Law (with David H Sheldon, second edition published 1997)
  • 1997: Forensic Aspects of Sleep (with Colin Shapiro)
  • 2000: Justice and the Prosecution of Old Crimes (with Daniel W. Shuman)
  • 2001: Errors, Medicine and the Law (with Alan Merry)
  • 2003: A Draft Criminal Code for Scotland (with Eric Clive, Pamela Ferguson and Christopher Gane)
  • 2004: Creating Humans: Ethical Questions where Reproduction and Science Collide (collected lectures, audio recordings)

See also

References

  1. ↑ Philby, Charlotte (19 June 2010). "Alexander McCall Smith: The No1 novelist's guide to Edinburgh". The Independent. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  2. ↑ McCall Smith, Alexander. "A. McCall Smith (McCallSmith) on Twitter". Twitter.com. Twitter.com. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Grice, Elizabeth (13 March 2009). "Alexander McCall Smith talks about 'Corduroy Mansions' – interview". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 October 2013. To say McCall Smith is a literary phenomenon doesn't quite describe what has happened. (Quoted on McCall Smith's own home page.)
  4. ↑ McCall Smith praises inspiration of islands. Headline and also in text: "McCall Smith, 65, says islands take their residents back to childhood." Article dated 14 October 2013. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  5. 1 2 Hunter, Jeffrey W. (2009). Contemporary Literary Criticism. Detroit, Michigan: Gale. ISBN 978-1-4144-1944-2.
  6. ↑ Nicoll, Ruaridh (2 May 2004). "Handy Sandy". The Observer. Retrieved 12 May 2008.
  7. ↑ Wands, D. C. and P. G. (16 May 2011). "Alexander McCall Smith". Fantastic Fiction. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
  8. ↑ Ian Rankin No. 1 Magazine, Retrieved 24 February 2014
  9. ↑ "New Year Honours—United Kingdom". The London Gazette. 29 December 2006. Retrieved 3 January 2009.
  10. ↑ Times article
  11. ↑ AFP news report on the "Okavango Macbeth" on YouTube
  12. ↑ "The Okavango Macbeth, More Information".
  13. ↑ Tempest, Michelle (2006). The Future of the NHS. ISBN 1-85811-369-5. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  14. ↑ Oxfam: Ox-Tales
  15. ↑ Kirkus Reviews. New York City: The Nielsen Company. 2005. ISSN 0042-6598.
  16. ↑ Maclean Dubois; 1st Edition (1997) Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  17. ↑ Scots language translation by James Robertson

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Alexander McCall Smith
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, March 20, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.