Wording His Magic

Alexander McCall Smith, who is out with a new detective series, creates books that are intimate, vividly imagined and always charming

- Mandira Nayar

At 70, Alexander McCall Smith has the energy of a toddler and the discipline of a Zen master. He writes six novels a year. “It

has got out of control,” he says with a booming fi ll-the-room kind of laugh. At the moment, he is writing another addition to The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and the second instalment of his book on the newly created Scandinavian detective, Ulf Varg. “I am always writing two books at a time,” he says over the phone from Edinburgh. “I was up between 3am and 5:30am and I got quite a lot done. Then I go back to bed. I find that if I have written, I will go back and have another couple of hours of sleep, which is quite refreshing.”

In between his literary commitments, Smith finds time to squeeze in music. His wife, Elizabeth, and he are founder members of The Really Terrible Orchestra. Despite the name, or maybe because of it, it is very popular on the Scottish circuit. He recently released an album—These Are The Hands—with a composer in Edinburgh. He has an operetta on Sir Walter Scott’s book Guy Mannering out in June.