Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith

Born 24 August 1948 (1948-08-24) (age 61)
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Nationality Scottish
Citizenship United Kingdom
Genres Fiction, Crime fiction, Children's books
Official website

Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, (born 24 August 1948) is a Zimbabwean-born Scottish 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.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College before moving to Scotland to study law at the University of Edinburgh.[1] After returning to southern Africa to teach law at the University of Botswana, he returned once more to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth, a physician, and their two daughters Lucy and Emily. 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 Commission 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.[2] 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.

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,[3] for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.[4] He is also the author of a testimonial in The Future of the NHS (2006).[5] His use of the serial format, in his Edinburgh and Pimlico novels, has revived the 19th-century format used by authors including Charles Dickens and Armistead Maupin.[citation needed]

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.[6]

[edit] Bibliography

Alexander Mccall Smith signing books in Helsinki April 2007

[edit] The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series

[edit] The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom

[edit] The Sunday Philosophy Club Series

also known as Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries

[edit] 44 Scotland Street Series

[edit] Corduroy Mansions

[edit] Other novels

[edit] Short story collections

  • 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

[edit] Children's books

[edit] 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: a seventh, by Mason and Graeme Laurie, was published in 2006. McCall Smith contributed to all six previous editions.)
  • 1987 Butterworths Medico-Legal Encyclopaedia (with J Kenyon Mason)
  • 1990 Family Rights: Family Law and Medical Advances (with Elaine Sutherland)
  • 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)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Nicoll, Ruaridh (2004-05-02). "Handy Sandy". The Observer. http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1207967,00.html. Retrieved 2008-05-12. 
  2. ^ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=58196&geotype=London&gpn=8&type= "New Year Honours—United Kingdom"]. The London Gazette. 2006-12-29. http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=58196&geotype=London&gpn=8&type=. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
  3. ^ Times article
  4. ^ AFP news report on the ‘Okavango Macbeth’
  5. ^ (ISBN 1-85811-369-5) edited by Dr Michelle Tempest
  6. ^ Oxfam: Ox-Tales

[edit] External links

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alexander McCall Smith
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Novel series by Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies'
Detective Agency
The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom
The Sunday
Philosophy Club
The 44 Scotland Street
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