Renowned author Sir Alexander McCall Smith will be in conversation with University of Southampton’s Professor Carole Burns at Mayflower Studios on October 24th, as a fundraiser for ArtfulScribe. I was honoured to be given the opportunity to ask McCall Smith a few questions of my own. If my conversation with him is anything to go by, it is set to be a truly insightful event with a master of the craft of writing.
A Tuesday morning, 9.45am, and my Zoom call to Sir Alexander McCall Smith decides that now is the time to act up. My camera doesn’t work so I can only see my own name staring back at me on the screen. McCall Smith joins the conversation and his camera does work, so I can see that he wears the tortoise-shell glasses of an academic and is dressed in a striped blazer with a friendly white pocket square peeking out to see what all the fuss is about. Behind him, there are several shelves filled with books, family photos, and what looks to be a golden picture of two Egyptian cats. He greets me with a smile and warmth in his voice.
Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, Sir Alexander – Southampton is really lucky to have you come to visit us! Are you looking forward to your talk with Carole Burns at Mayflower Studios, one of our hubs of culture in Southampton?
Yes, I’m excited to have an onstage discussion about my various books and series; I find these are also rather nice occasions to meet readers.
Many readers will know you for The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. I remember coming across the 2008 TV series first and watching it with sister and my mum, who was a fan of the books and wanted to watch it with us. This inspired me to read the books too. Those who know the series will be aware that the books are set in Africa, a place you know well from childhood. Actually, my mum wanted to ask you: what were your favourite memories growing up in Southern Rhodesia?
I really loved the African bush, going out into the wild, so I would say a favourite memory was having a cooked breakfast over a fire out on the hills. There’s something about the early morning in the African bush which is particularly appealing. That has always been a very powerful memory. I go back to Botswana every year and, when we go out, the world is fresh, there’s birdsong, a lovely smell in the air.
It sounds beautiful. Africa is really at the heart of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I wonder how important do you think it is to share African stories and stories set in Africa with the UK audience?
I think it is a great pity that many people don’t really know much about Africa or get a rather unrealistic view of it, or a rather unfair view of it. Africa gets into the newspapers when there are problems but there are many wonderful things about African cultures which never really get across to people. People are deprived of the good news about Africa. The good news is that anyone who visits from outside finds they are often impressed by the kindness of the people and the warmth of the culture.
I think it’s a good thing if people can read about other cultures, other ways of looking at the world. I’ve never made any secret of the fact that my books about Botswana are hymns of praise – I admire the country and I admire the culture. There are writers who will write about less positive things and that’s fine but the culture is broad and there’s room for all sorts of views. If people read my positive view of the country and become involved in that, I think that’s good; to see the world from the perspective of other characters is part of the job of fiction. It allows us to open our eyes to very different places and people.
Yes, as a teacher, I find literature across cultures to be crucial to developing the horizons of young people. As readers, it builds empathy.
Absolutely. That’s one of the main roles of children’s fiction: to develop the moral imagination. Our moral imagination is developed by putting ourselves into the shoes of others. What better way of doing that than telling the story of others? As a story-telling species, that’s how we find out about things and convey our impressions of the world.
Certainly, setting is part of the appeal of the novels but, as you say, so are the people. Characters are important. What influenced your characters, particularly in the detective stories you write?
Well, the characters in The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency are based on types of people that I have met, though I don’t tend to base my fictional characters on specific people. They represent ‘human types’, based on the sorts of people I met when I lived in Botswana. Mma Ramotswe is based on a number of African woman like her who I have met over the years, who are very resourceful and capable. She embodies those characteristics of people I liked and admired.
She’s a brilliant female character and one which many women feel drawn to. I mentioned previously how I would watch the show with my mum and my sister. We all really connected with the series. Did you intend to write a character which women connected with?
That’s a very interesting question because I didn’t really have any particular agenda when I started writing those books. I wanted to write about a woman in Botswana, a particular type of woman who is very friendly, very charming. I didn’t feel like I was writing for any particular reader so I didn’t say to myself that I wanted to write a character women will be interested in. So, it wasn’t intentional.
What’s happened is, I think that Mma Ramotswe appeals to women – but so do the male characters, I think they appeal as well. I write a lot about women. My major characters tend to be women – why is that? Well, I suppose I enjoy the conversation of women; I think there is a difference between male conversation, the conversations men have amongst themselves, and the conversations women have among themselves. I think there are differences. Women are more prepared to open up and talk about feelings, for example. Men can do that and will do that but a lot of men find themselves inhibited when they talk about their feelings. It’s a bit sad, in a way, because they can find it quite difficult to express their feelings. I think that that has changed and it is continuing to change. Many men now are not afraid to cry, whereas in the past they would’ve been. I think I chose to write about women characters because that would enable me to explore that dialogue amongst them and it so happened that women enjoyed reading the books.
Now, men do read the books but the majority of my readers are women. That, of course, shouldn’t be a surprise as women read more fiction than men do and the novel is something that women read more than men. Look at book groups. Mostly women – and I do think it is a shame that more men don’t join book groups.
Obviously, we’ve discussed Botswana a little already but 44 Scotland Street is set in Edinburgh New Town, another place known to you, and there’s elements of law coming through your work – all of these details which reflect you as a person. How much would you say your identity plays into your writing? Would you recommend writers to follow that classic piece of advice to “write what you know”?
A lot of my writing is set in Scotland. Readers can often work out where I have actually been because of the specific references I make. Writers do write from a particular viewpoint; they can attempt to look at matters through another perspective (and that’s a good thing to do) but there’s a lot of them which will come through. Choice of subject matter, for example, is going to be dictated to a great extent by the personal interests and attitudes of the person writing. An author emerges through his or her prose.
You can try to be objective and deposition yourself but, whenever I write, I fully understand that my personal interests and concerns will impact my work. At the same time, you don’t want to clutter up your writing too much and must give your characters room to breathe, to show themselves as they are rather than how you think they should be.
I like that comment about letting your characters have room to breathe. I don’t know if you ever find this but, when I write my own fiction, I can find that the characters can sometimes get away from me and that they have a life of their own. Do you ever have that experience yourself?
Yes, that’s true! I have often thought about that. I think that really refers to the role the subconscious mind plays when it comes to the construction of fiction. The subconscious mind is always looking at the world, interrogating the world, coming up with ‘what if’ possibilities, and imagining what the world might be. We’re not aware of the fact we’re thinking those thoughts, exploring those possibilities.
So when an author creates a character, there may be a certain amount of deliberate thought which comes into the creation but then the subconscious mind might come up with possibilities and experiences for that character; the writer finds they are surprised by the developments and it’s as if this character has been leading this life independently. Sometimes, something happens and I hadn’t anticipated it!
Not only do your characters have strong voices, but your writing does too. What advice do you give to young writers who are still trying to find their voice?
Write from the heart. The other piece of advice I would give is to persist. Don’t be discouraged, you have to persist. Remember the muse isn’t always going to come and tap you on the shoulder, the muse has other things to do. Persist and keep to a regime.
Speaking of regime, I read an interview you’d given before where you said you write everyday – do you still do that?
Yes, more or less, other than the occasional day where events conspire to stop me.
How do you balance writing a thrilling, compelling narrative with the charm which characterises much of your writing? When I think of your style, I think of that lovely opening to the first book in The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series where you ask: what more does a detective agency need than three cups of tea?
Style is a very personal thing – it’s the author’s voice and that’s as personal as the real voice they have when he or she speaks. I don’t deliberately set out to write in a particular style; it’s the way I write and that could probably be explained by what I read in my very early years or the prose which I was exposed to.
Also, it could be explained by the way in which I was taught grammar, which is interesting, because I was taught grammar in the days when you underlined clauses in different colours. We had it drummed into us the different clauses and the importance of having a verb in a sentence and so on – a lot of very basic stuff. That, I think, has an effect on style.
Also, I was exposed to the language in the Book of Common Prayer. As a child, I was going to church and the language I heard was the glorious, resonant language of the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible. Those two sources had an immense impact on the English language because they’re so poetic.
I was exposed to a lot of poetry. I was made to learn ten lines of poetry a day at school. This exposure to people who used the English language beautifully, those rhythms of language, was deeply ingrained.
Can you further explain what you find interesting about the rhythm of language?
I very much like African English, both spoken and written. There’s a lovely rhythm to it. There’s an Old Testament feel to it. They’ve been at schools where English is taught as a second language; they’ve learnt grammar and structures to the language but the result is beautiful. The same can be found in Indian English. There’s a feel to it of something traditional but also unique. Contemporary English has become increasingly debased. The language of the internet, for example. The language really has been deprived of the inherent poetry within it.
As a teacher, I’ve noticed when I read the work of my EAL (English as an additional language) students there is a sense of rhythm to it, even when they haven’t necessarily grasped all of the basics. A different beat to it.
I’m really interested to hear that. If you want to see these differences vividly portrayed, go to YouTube and listen to a statesman of the 1950s or 60s and compare it to a contemporary – even someone like Richard Nixon; I came across an interview that Richard Nixon was giving and noticed that he spoke in proper sentences. There was a completeness to what he said. Now, Richard Nixon was not a model politician but the language was very different from the language of contemporary politics. We’re fortunate that we still have a reasonable rhetorical tradition.
Language changes and not everything is for the worse. The meaning of words changes and one accepts that – it’s a living thing. You can still identify periods where the richness and possibilities of language are constrained or reduced, having been simplified. I think we should try to protect the richness of language, particularly in the face of euphemisms which may conceal something nasty, such as when ‘collateral damage’ really means ‘people being killed by bombs’. We need to protect the purity of the language, as there can be all sorts of moral implications to it. Confusing the words ‘mistake’ and ‘deliberate wrong’, for example, that’s not a mistake – it is denial. Have you noticed people don’t ‘die’ any more? They ‘pass’.
Yes, it’s more powerful to say the reality.
Yes, ‘he died’. This is where linguistic decline becomes morally and politically serious. ‘Assisted migration’… what does that mean? ‘Chucking people out of their homes’. So, yes, protecting language is important.
I remember, years ago, when I was a university professor…we had exchanges with the USSR Academy of Sciences and we had a Russian delegation visiting Edinburgh; we had a meeting in which we were talking about constitutional change and the Russians were speaking Russian (we had an interpreter). An elderly man asked a question in Russian and I saw the Russians in the room all sit up, as if they’d received an electric shock. They all seemed so moved by the words he was saying. I asked one of them afterwards why they reacted like that. He said: ‘he was talking our language in such a beautiful way, in a way that we haven’t heard for a long time’.
For more information about Alexander McCall Smith ‘in conversation’ at Mayflower Studios, visit: mayflower.org.uk/whats-on/alexander-mccall-smith-2025
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