Alexander McCall Smith Meet the Author

Another chance to see Meet The Author, with Alexander McCall Smith.

Alexander McCall Smith is as popular as he is prolific.

When Mma Ramotswe first appeared as the proprietrix of the No.

1 Ladies Detectives Agency of Botswana, solving every day

problems with an unruffled determination that never flags,

she became an instant friend to readers around the world.

Precious and Grace is the 17th book in the series, alongside

there are the 11 volumes and the 44 Scotland Street books,

written as a newspaper serial, and the Isabel Dalhousie stories,

where the author can indulge through Isabel his love of WH Auden.

He is one of our most popular writers.

Why do you think Mma Ramotswe became such a close and intimate friend

I think it is something to do with her character.

She's a very gentle, understanding woman and I think that

readers like to be in the company of somebody whom they like, somebody

they feel they would like to sit down in real life with and enjoy

Well, you illustrate there one of the qualities that people

A sort of placid kind of life, which is the kind of life

Now, it's not devoid of excitement, it is not devoid of drama.

They are somehow domestic dramas, aren't they?

I think people respond quite well to that, in that, most of us lead

Most of us lead lives in which nothing really

spectacular happens, there are not constant explosions

So, we rather like to spend time, in the fictional sense,

I think that you can, in very gentle fiction,

you can make big points about the world.

You can say things about some of the profound issues that we face.

But do it in a rather gentle way, and in a sense you make more

of a point with people if you do that.

If, for example, you use humour to make a point, you are more likely

It is a country of which you have become fond -

And the reason why I wrote these books is because it

I was so impressed with it and found that I liked and admired it.

And I stood in admiration of a country which has been

in rather difficult circumstances, in that it was

But it managed to maintain its integrity.

It approached life in a quiet and organised way and I was just

very taken by the politeness, the courtesy of the people,

I felt this was an island of peace, tranquillity and wisdom, in a sense.

You describe there very clearly your own style.

And if you take, for example, the 44 Scotland Street stories,

set in a tenement block in Edinburgh, your own city,

where the doings of the various people who live on different floors

It is a particular kind of fiction that you enjoy,

the sort of parting the lace curtains and having a peak.

Yes, I suppose you could call it social comedy.

Social fiction, looking at the lives of people,

looking their quirks, their little ways and having fun

with them, and I enjoy that very much indeed.

Because we are all absurd to a greater or lesser

We can make terrific mountains out of molehills

You made a big mountain out of all these molehills.

The Scotland Street series has been running and running.

1 Ladies Detective Agency is now in its 17th volume.

You also have the Isabel Dalhousie novels.

Now, she's very interesting because I always think there's a lot

of you in there because she is mad about Auden, as you are.

I find it extraordinary, but I agree with Isabel Dalhousie

Of course you don't have to scratch very hard to see

Well, your enthusiasm for Auden is well known to people

What is it about Auden that's always moved you?

Well, Auden, I think, is just such a wonderful humane voice.

I remember when I first started reading Auden's

poetry many years ago, I was so rested by it.

I was struck by the stength of the ideas, the complexity

of the ideas and the beauty of the language.

So he's a poet who manages to say the most profound things

about life in a very, very beautiful way.

That is an enormous breadth, as you say.

And you are a polymath in many ways because you're an academic

in the medical law field and then you suddenly discovered that

writing was more or less taking over your life.

You were producing three, four, five books a year.

How do you manage to organise your life to do that?

Well, you have to be quite careful about organisation if you are doing

I have a season for each of the series.

There'll be a period of a few months where I know I have to write

You know that is the time when this will be done

The one thing that I think you can't do, as an author,

is wait for inspiration to strike you.

You can't wait for the news to appear.

She may appear once you've sat down and once you're working,

you play suddenly realise that the muse has

Looking at the type of books you read yourself and admire,

I know that an author whom you particularly admire,

who perhaps hasn't had the attention that many people think she deserves

What is it about Barbara Pym's books you like?

Perhaps it ties in with something you said earlier on about

Barbara Pym is concerned with very small matters.

The calm exploration of small matters.

She really was the 20th century Jane Austen.

Capable of saying very big things about people

So she would have a character, for example, saying,

as happens in one of her books, a character saying, "I never thought

I was the sort of person who would deserve my own bathroom."

Poignancy is something that I think you've got

a very strong feeling for, the sadness of things that

happen in every day life, the lack of fulfilment in some small

way that adds up to, you know, disappointment,

I find myself very moved by certain things.

1 Ladies Detectives Agency series, Mma Mukutsi, who has had

a very poor background, has a beautiful little lace

handkerchief and that represents everything she would like to have

So I find myself very moved by that sort of thing.

Almost as many, getting on that way, in 44 Scotland Street.

Can you see yours carrying on forever?

I remember you telling me a story about being on a plane and sitting

opposite somebody on a transatlantic flight who was finishing one

of your books and saying, "Oh, dear, oh dear."

Not realising you were there and you leaned over

and as you were getting off and said, "Don't worry.

There'll be another one along in a minute."

I was, as it happens, on that flight I was writing

the next one in that series as this person was reading the previous one.

You could have sent her an e-mail with the thing.

Alexander McCall Smith, thank you very much.