Author Details
Author Details
McCall Smith, Alexander
"Alexander McCall Smith began the now highly successful 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series in 1996, after being inspired by the sight of a 'traditionally built' Botswanan lady chasing down a chicken for a meal. The first book in the series - 'The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency' was published in the UK in 1998 but didn't arrive in the USA until 2001. There are currently 6 books in the series:
1. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
2. Tears of The Giraffe
3. Morality For Beautiful Girls
4. The Kalahari Typing School For Men
5. The Full Cupboard of Life (UK May 2003, US May 2004)
6. In The Company of Cheerful Ladies (UK July 2004, USA Feb 2005)
McCall Smith, known to his friends as Sandy, describes the Botswanans as 'genuinely courteous people' He knows Botswana well as he grew up there and also spent several years on the law faculty of the University of Botswana; his volume on the legal system of Botswana (The Criminal Law of Botswana) remains the definitive and in fact, only book on the subject.
In 2004 he published the first in a new series, 'The Sunday Philosophy Club' featuring Isabel Dalhousie, a Scottish-American professor of moral philosophy. McCall Smith is already working on the second title in the series, 'Single White Crow', and even has a title for the third book, 'Proper Pepper', which will be set in the South Indies.
When asked what ties the two series together he says that he believes it to be 'the comfort of the settings - not too cozy, but interesting and comfortable enough that you get caught up in the worlds of Mma. Ramotswe and Isabel'.
In addition to all his other projects, McCall Smith also finds time to play in the Really Terrible Orchestra and write a daily column for The Scotsman newspaper titled 44 Scotland Street - writing over 110,000 words in 6 months! Television and movie rights based on the series have recently been sold to Working Title Films (who produced Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City); and McCall Smith began a second series of daily columns about 44 Scotland Street in October 2004.
Up until 2004 he juggled his career as a Professor of Medical Law, with his writing (in addition to the Mma Ramotswe and Isabel Dalhousie books, he has written over fifty other books ranging from specialist titles such as Forensic Aspects of Sleep (the only book on the subject) to The Perfect Hamburger (a children's novel) and Portuguese Irregular Verbs (a collection of stories about eccentric German professors). However, in late 2004 he took a 3 year leave from his academic position in order to focus on writing. "
