Alexander Mccall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith

Contemporary Literary Criticism

Alexander McCall Smith Born: August 24, 1948 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Other Names : McCall Smith, Alexander Alasdair; McCall Smith, R. Alexander Nationality: British Occupation: Writer Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 268. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center . Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning Table of Contents:

Introduction Biographical Information Major Works Critical Reception Writings by the Author Further Readings about the Author

Introduction

Smith's novel The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998) is a publishing phenomenon, thus far spawning eight sequels, more than a dozen related titles, film and television productions, and even a revival of the author's career as a writer of children's books. The "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series follows the personal and professional lives of Precious Ramotswe, the first female sleuth in Botswana, as she dispenses wisdom and bush tea to her clients, most of whom are engaged in domestic intrigues. Resembling the novel of manners slightly more than the genre of detective

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fiction, this series is almost unanimously described by readers as charming and whimsical in its celebration of everyday events and fundamental human goodness. The moral dimension of the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency"--and the three series of mystery novels that have followed it--is not surprising given Smith's status as an international ethics consultant and professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh. In 2004 Smith finally took a leave of absence from these other duties to write full time; in the same year he was the recipient of the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library Award and the British Book Awards Author of the Year prize. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, currently available in thirty-two languages, made the New York Times Bestseller List, gained two Special Recommendations from the Booker Prize judges, and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.

Biographical Information

Smith was born in Bulawayo, in southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where his father worked as a public prosecutor in what was then a British colony. At the age of seventeen, Smith left Africa for Scotland, earning a Ph.D. in law from the University of Edinburgh. While working as a professor at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Smith submitted two entries to a Scottish literary competition, one a children's book and the other a novel for adults. Winning in the children's category, Smith went on to publish thirty books of juvenile fiction in the 1980s and 1990s. In the meantime, he had returned to Africa, where in 1981 he helped to found a law school in Botswana and cowrote what remains the only book on the country's legal system, The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992). Although Smith moved back to Scotland permanently in 1984 to join the faculty of the University of Edinburgh, he visits Botswana every year. His abiding love and respect for the country and its people is considered one of the hallmarks of the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series. Smith is also an active sponsor of African children's charities and was instrumental in ensuring that the movie version of the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" would be filmed entirely in Botswana, with a large portion of the cast natives. During Smith's professorship at the University of Edinburgh he accepted several invitations to teach abroad, published a number of respected academic books on questions related to medical ethics, and served as Great Britain's representative on the UNESCO bioethics commission. Smith and his wife have two daughters, with whom they founded the Really Terrible Orchestra, with Smith as bassoonist, which has developed a cult following in Scotland, Canada, Australia, and the United States.

Major Works

According to Smith, his mystery novels address the question of "how people resolve ordinary dilemmas and moral issues in their day-to-day life." The inspiration for the heroine of the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series was a Botswanan woman Smith saw patiently chasing a chicken around her well-groomed yard. Although he had witnessed the scene fifteen years earlier, the memory of the woman's spirit and grace remained with him. The traditional values of the Botswanan village--courtesy, dignity, kindness, and generosity--inform Mma (Setswanan form of female address) Ramotswe's approach to her clients and their troubles. The crimes she investigates are of the mundane variety, none involving the scenes of bloody violence that often characterize detective fiction. For example, the second book in the series, Tears of the Giraffe (2000), concerns an American woman searching for her missing son in Africa. The third installment, Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001), involves a rigged beauty pageant. In the seventh installment, Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006), "traditionally built" Ramotswe attempts to lose weight while performing surveillance on a restaurant cook who is suspected of stealing food for her increasingly rotund husband. The tiny white van Ramotswe drives has taken on iconic status for fans of the

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series, as have the huge eyeglasses worn by her assistant, Grace Makutsi. Much of the humor of this series is situational. In the inaugural novel, Ramotswe's father dies, leaving her an expensive herd of cattle. Ramotswe makes the bold decision to sell the cattle to finance a detective agency, setting up shop in Gaborone next to Speedy Motors, whose proprietor, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, eventually becomes her husband. Matekoni's assistants are comical in their incompetence, placing their greasy hands all over Mma Ramotswe's office machines, pounding hammers on engines, and, in the sixth installment, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004), appropriating Ramotswe's teapot to use as a gas can. Ramotswe's assistant is capable but has a chip on her shoulder; one of the running jokes of the series is her constant reminder to anyone within earshot that she scored 97% on the Botswana Secretarial School exam.

Smith is the author of three other series of mystery novels, which he writes simultaneously with the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," along with two new series of children's books, "Max and Maddy," about a brother and sister sleuth team, and "Akimbo," which explores African wildlife. The "Sunday Philosophy Club" series features protagonist Isabel Dalhousie, a wealthy, middle-aged Scottish- American professor of moral philosophy and the editor of the Edinburgh Review of Applied Ethics. Dalhousie brings questions of conscience to bear on public scandals and private dilemmas, including the propriety of her own romance with a much younger man, the ex-fiancé of her niece. The three novels in the "Portuguese Irregular Verbs" series are mild satires of academia, each focusing on a different German professor who, although extremely intelligent, is challenged by everyday activities. The protagonist of the first novel in the series is Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, the author of the titular book, which very few have read and which his own dentist uses as a stepstool. The series "44 Scotland Street" follows the quirky inhabitants of a fictional apartment building on a real street in Edinburgh. The first novel in the series, 44 Scotland Street (2005), was originally a daily serial in the Edinburgh Scotsman, allowing Smith to solicit input from his readers, one of whom convinced the author to write him into the series.

Critical Reception

Smith once said of his famous character Precious Ramotswe, "I wanted her to represent all that is fine in the human condition," adding "I don't see why one should go through life feeling that all is bleakness and that there are no possibilities." The majority of reviewers have applauded Smith's optimism, compassion for Botswana, and celebration of life's small pleasures. Yet a few have taken issue with what Anthony Sattin described as Smith's "sweet and sunny" portrait of Botswana. Ironically, these critics view as morally unconscionable Smith's failure to publicize Africa's political and social strife, especially its AIDS epidemic. However, some critics, including Virginia LaGrand and Craig E. Mattson, have looked beneath the surface charm of the books in the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series to uncover a complex picture of the power struggles in postcolonial Africa. Lucian Msamati, the actor from Zimbabwe who plays J. L. B. Matekoni in the film version of the series, also offered a defense of Smith: "No story is the be all and the end all--they're beginnings. And this is a fantastic beginning. There is not a single white character, no well-meaning Westerner trying to help Africa. These are positive images of Africa and Africans."

WORKS:

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:

The Perfect Hamburger (juvenilia) 1982 Mike's Magic Seeds (juvenilia) 1988

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Family Rights: Family Law and Medical Advances [editor] [with Elaine Sutherland] (essays) 1990 The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean (juvenilia) 1990 Law and Medical Ethics (essay) 1991 The Criminal Law of Botswana [with Krame Frimpong] (nonfiction) 1992 The Bubblegum Tree (juvenilia) 1996 Forensic Aspects of Sleep (nonfiction) 1997 *The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (novel) 1998 The Popcorn Pirates (juvenilia) 1999 *Tears of the Giraffe (novel) 2000 *Morality for Beautiful Girls (novel) 2001 *The Kalahari Typing School for Men (novel) 2002 *The Full Cupboard of Life (novel) 2003 †Portuguese Irregular Verbs (novel) 2003 *In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (novel) 2004 †† The Sunday Philosophy Club (novel) 2004 §44 Scotland Street (novel) 2005 Akimbo and the Elephants (juvenilia) 2005 †At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (novel) 2005 †The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (novel) 2005 †† Friends, Lovers, Chocolate (novel) 2005 Akimbo and the Snakes (juvenilia) 2006 *Blue Shoes and Happiness (novel) 2006 The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean (juvenilia) 2006 §Espresso Tales: The Latest from 44 Scotland Street (novel) 2006 §Love over Scotland (novel) 2006 †† The Right Attitude to Rain (novel) 2006 †† The Careful Use of Compliments (novel) 2007 *The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (novel) 2007 The Perfect Hamburger and Other Stories (juvenilia) 2007 §The World According to Bertie (novel) 2007 †† The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (novel) 2008 *The Miracle at Speedy Motors (novel) 2008 §The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (novel) 2008

Footnotes:*This work is part of the series known collectively as the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books. †This work is part of the "Portuguese Irregular Verbs" series. ††This work is part of the "Sunday Philosophy Club" series. §This work is part of the "44 Scotland Street" series.