Interview with Alexander McCall Smith

Robert J. Guttman and Marie-Laure Poiré interviewed Scottish author
Alexander McCall Smith earlier this summer in Washington, D.C. Smith, the
author of the popular The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, talks about his books and why they have become such worldwide best sellers.

Transatlantic magazine:
Are people in Africa reading your books?
Alexander McCall Smith:
Yes, they sell them in various African countries. I have been very pleased to see that very many in Botswana have read them. And I am particularly pleased that the
Botswana people can recognize the characters. That is very nice. Some people are not very comfortable with the fact that I am an outside writer writing about someone else’s society. With all the rather negative accounts of Africa being written, the people of sub-Saharan Africa sometimes are surprised and pleased that someone should write a positive account. I don’t attempt to hide the fact that I am writing a positive book about the country of Botswana.

You are a positive writer. Are you trying to talk about morality in your books?
I don’t set out to write about morality. I don’t really set out to tell people how to live their lives. Mine is flawed and as bad as anyone else. What I suppose I am is a writer who tries to accentuate the positive features of what I am writing about. I suppose I am slightly a utopian writer. I am writing fables, but they are based on
reality. They are certainly in a natural place and discuss quite incredible characters. But, they are meant to be books that make people feel more hopeful about the phases of humanity and might make people feel more positive about Africa. And if
they do I am delighted. I don’t have a big agenda writing these books. If they have an effect of cheering people up and helping people realize that kindness and generosity’s spirit comes from many of these African countries and it is something of value and something that we can see, then that’s fine.

Why do think your book about a small African country and a heavy-set lady detective has found such a wide audience in the United States and other places?
I always find it a little bit embarrassing to talk about that because it is always awkward to talk about my own work. I have obviously thought about it and what I hear from readers, because I speak to many thousands of readers, and what I hear is that the books appear to help them in some way to deal with the pain in this life. I’ll give you an example: Yesterday I was up in Michigan doing a talk in a small town, speaking to about 300 readers. And two women came up, at separate times, and one said Mma Ramotswe had helped her very much. She had a very difficult year and the books helped her pull through, which I was very touched about. Another woman came up and said that she had just been having various areas of chemotherapy and she had taken great comfort from the books. That may sound a little bit drastic, but actually that happens all the time. People say that to me all the time, and it gives me quite a sense of responsibility. I realize what you actually write becomes such an important part of somebody’s imaginative life, which appears to have happened with these characters, and they are as they say, they are in a sense fables. And fables are in way very powerful to people. So that is happening and people feel that my books are reassuring. People feel that they are not going to encounter violence and aggression in them - and that is important. I think people feel the need for escape to a place where somehow they can feel comfortable and reassured and that is one of the functions of literature. We all need that and we get it in various places, especially in books.

There is little violence in your books, which is untypical of books today. Do you feel society is getting more crude?
We are seeing a coarsening in our lives. We are seeing a coarsening of our public
dialogue. Language has become more aggressive without doubt. To a certain extent our age became rather harsh and rather cynical. Perhaps people want to think of the possibilities of goodness, and the possibilities of human decency. We want to believe that there is a place where these values are practiced. Now, one could do a full-scale retreat into a total utopia and seek solace there, but for most people that is too much. They cannot sustain it. If you can find a world where people who embody some of these values that you want to believe in, such as Mma Ramotswe, who is kind, who is forgiving, who is generous in her spirit, it is important.

So you like to have your books have an old-fashioned sense of morality?
I am definitely old-fashioned in my approach and I probably would say that I would subscribe to many of the conventions that one would find in 19th century novels. The narrative is very important. The tricks of 19th century novels I don’t resort to.
So yes, I confess to be fairly old-fashioned.

Why do you have a female as your main character?
I am intrigued by women’s conversation, which is different from male conversation, which tends to be more objective. I know this seems a cliché, but I think it is rather true. Women’s conversation is more subjective and often more interesting. But of course men don’t know what women really talk about.

Do you like being called the “Miss Marple of Botswana”?
It is not the comparison I would make. I would say Mma Ramotswe is more modern than Miss Marple and she also gets it wrong. She is different from Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

Do you think your novels help balance negative news we hear daily out of Africa?
They remind us of other things that are happening in Africa. They remind us of certain human values, which are attractive there. I wouldn’t want them to disguise or
obscure the grim social and political reality of the many sub-Saharan African countries. But they can sit alongside those works of greater social realism, which will obviously deal with very unpalatable and difficult matters. All I wish is that they complement the negative picture and that they just remind us that alongside that negative picture, which is true, it is an accurate picture of difficulties, there is another aspect. Also, one can get into a tremendously negative frame of mind about these things and just concentrate on failure and disasters, which actually, ultimately, may not help the negative and disasters. If these books can encourage people to take more positive engagement, to engage with Africa more enthusiastically, then again, I would be happy. Because we can’t walk away from the claim that Africa is making on the rest of the world. This is a claim that cannot be forgotten and not to be treated as a basket case.

Do you think the world is doing enough to help out in Africa?
Probably not. Aid and development are very complex subjects. I very much welcome the initiatives of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The commission for Africa is a very
attractive one. And Gordon Brown’s engagement with that relief and such matters is
very encouraging. That’s very positive.

Are you stunned or amazed about the success of your book?
Yes, I am amazed and very grateful for it. It gives me great pleasure that it is being read by so many people. That is very nice. I am also very glad that some of my less well-known books are having their time in the sun as a result. I am delighted that it is now being published commercially on both sides of the Atlantic. And will be translated into Bulgarian!

How many books have you sold out of the series?
The Botswana series in English has sold about eight million copies and has been translated into 34 languages. I don’t know how many copies it has sold in various other languages, we haven’t added it up.

What is your Portuguese Irregular Verbs series of books about?
It’s a series of three German professors. Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld,
Professor Dr. Honoris Causa Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr. Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. And the three books in the series - Portuguese Irregular Verbs, Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and the third one is called At the Villa of Reduced
Circumstances. It deals with the series of humiliations for three professors of Philology.

What about your new series?
Yes, I am very pleased with that. I have a second one that is coming out in September - Friends, Lovers, Chocolate. And I have written a serial novel, which is going to be published in a Scottish newspaper. We have had two series so far, six months each, a thousand words a day.

You are doing something rather old-fashioned. You are serializing stories in a Scottish newspaper.
Yes, in the newspaper, and the first volume will be published as a book. It will be published in the UK already. But, Vintage will bring that out in June as the first series. It is called 44 Scotland Street and it’s all about the characters living in a
particular building in Edinburgh and I’ve just had great fun. It took off in the newspaper pretty exceptionally. And I’m going to do the third series starting in the middle of September. That is what I am writing at the moment, so I’ve got the
first twenty or thirty episodes ready to start. Because once they start, every day the paper uses a thousand words.

Is this supposed to be finished this summer?
The one that is going to be published as a book is already finished. I finished last year. Then, I wrote a second series, which will be published as a book in the UK in the autumn and then, in the spring in the U.S. And the next series is going to start in the paper in the middle of this coming September. So I am writing the first episodes of that so when we start publications on September the 15th, I’ve got some in the
bank.

So what about your new book?
It deals with the central character, Isabelle, who is a small philosopher. So there are three issues of great philosophical importance. Chocolate being an issue of temptation - for most of us, for me in particular.

And that will be out in September in the U.S.?
Yes.

And this is your new series?
Yes, volume II of The Sunday Philosophy Club.

Do you know the Mma Ramotswe of Botswana or is it just a character of your imagination or a mix of several people you actually know?
There isn’t a real Mma Ramotswe. I suppose it’s a mix of many people whom I have
met. I’ve met people who have had those characteristics—so she represents a mix of them, and of course some imaginary ones as well. People go to Botswana and they say they met her. “We met a woman who was just like her.”