Scots writer's world acclaim 'down to luck'; From academia to

IT would be hard to think of a less likely literary sensation than Alexander McCall Smith. Yet the 54-year-old author of Law And Medical Ethics and Forensic Aspects Of Sleep appears set to become the latest Scottish international bestseller, rivalling the success of fellow Edinburgh authors JK Rowling, Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh.

"It's an extraordinary story," says Smith, who can hardly believe his luck. But far-fetched as it may sound, the evidence is compelling. With his series of books set in Botswana and centred on a women's detective agency, Smith has become one the most sought-after authors in America, with publishers queuing up for the rights to his offbeat books.

Largely through word of mouth and the recommendations of independent booksellers, the first book in the sequence, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, has steadily crept up bestseller lists. Meanwhile, Anthony Minghella, director of the Oscar-winning The English Patient, has acquired the film rights and hopes to adapt it for television. Earlier this year The New York Times, in a page- length review, described Smith's unconventional sleuth, Mma Precious Ramotswe, as "the Miss Marple of Botswana".

For Smith, it is all overwhelming. "The sales of No.1 just get better and better," he says. First published in 1998 by Polygon, the tiny publisher which Edinburgh University Press recently sold to Birlinn, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency has been reprinted three times this year.

But the best is still to come. Mass-market paperback publisher Anchor Books acquired the US rights and last month relaunched the series with the publication of No.1 and its successor, Tears Of The Giraffe. A reprint was called for within a fortnight. There's also the promise of an article in the Wall Street Journal and advertisements in The New York Times Review of Books. In November, Anchor is publishing the third book in the series, Morality For Beautiful Girls. Next year comes the US publication of the fourth title in the series, The Kalahari Typing School For Men. Smith intends to tour America to promote it.

His growing legion of fans can barely wait. "Everything about the man is totally appealing," Rosemary Mauve, a founding member of the New York branch of the Mma Ramotswe Society, told Publishers Weekly. "He's just full of delight - it just bubbles up out of him."

Smith himself, ensconced in the pleasingly shambolic study of his home in Merchiston - a room full of books, paintings and bric-a-brac - says: "I never thought it would happen to me. I really didn't. A lot of it's down to luck."

Though he has written numerous books, including many for children, writing has never been his career. His day job is that of a law professor at Edinburgh University, specialising in genetics and ethics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a member of Unesco's International Bioethics Commission and vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission. He is also a prolific contributor to academic journals and books, and has penned and co-written numerous legal works, including The Duty To Rescue and The Criminal Law Of Botswana.

He writes his novels at weekends or on holiday, averaging 4000 words in a morning, around 30,000 words a week. It is a punishing work-rate. "I don't have much spare time," he concedes. "I can't go on living at this pace much longer."

He was born in Zimbabwe and visits Africa regularly, including Botswana, one of that unhappy continent's few unsung countries, where he helped set up the first law school and where he was "very, very pleased" to discover that the series has gone down well. "They're probably the best-selling novels in Botswana." Fans of the books have also been encouraged to visit Botswana and seek out locations in the book. An Anglican priest whom Smith met on a recent visit begged to be included in a forthcoming novel, which he will be.

Unlike Arthur Conan Doyle, who killed off Sherlock Holmes (albeit temporarily), Smith has no plans to do away with Mma Ramotswe. "Stopping now," he says, "would be like breaking off mid- conversation." He's been touched by the letters he receives from readers who find reassurance in his heroine's common sense, practical advice and folk wisdom. "I don't regard them as detective novels," he says. "They're really novels about Africa."

Minghella agrees. "I was enchanted by the character of Precious Ramotswe, the sly humour of Alexander McCall Smith's writing and his deft evocation of a culture," he told Screen Africa. "I thought the naturally episodic nature of the novels and the variety of cases lent itself naturally to television and the drama series."

Minghella is expected to turn his attention to the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency when he finishes filming Cold Mountain, a novel by Charles Frazier. For his part, Smith is basking in the attention. In New York he was fted by publishing moguls eager to sign him up. Sonny Mehta, head of Random House, one of America's biggest publishers, took him to lunch with 20 of his executives. Already foreign rights have been sold in Germany, Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Finland, to name a few. "We're negotiating Thai," says Smith with an infectious giggle.

Despite all this busyness, Smith is forging ahead with other projects. The fifth Precious Ramotswe novel - The Full Cupboard Of Life - will be published by Polygon in May. Next year Polygon will also publish two of his earlier books about a trio of German academics obsessed with arcane linguistic matters, which he had previously published and distributed privately.

Smith has a new series in the pipeline, already bought by TimeWarner, and the publication of it begins in February 2004 with Crushed Strawberry. Set in Edinburgh, it features an amateur detective called Isabel Dalhousie, who, like Smith, lives in Merchiston. Like Mma Ramotswe, she is no cliche gumshoe but a philosopher who uses her training to solve crimes. The novel opens in the Usher Hall when someone plunges to death from the gods. TimeWarner's Richard Beswick says it is "brilliant, idiosyncratic". On Smith's form you can take that as read.

Copyright 2002
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