Wilbur Smith

On 9 January 1933, British-South African novelist Wilbur Smith was born in Ndola in what is now Zambia. He specialised in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries. He also wrote a series of historical novels that are based in Ancient Egypt during Pharaoh Memnon's reign.

An accountant by training, he gained a film contract with his first published novel 'When the Lion Feeds'. This encouraged him to become a full-time writer, and he developed three long chronicles of the South African experience which all became best-sellers. He acknowledged his publisher Charles Pick's advice to 'write about what you know best', and his work takes in much authentic detail of the local hunting and mining way of life, along with the romance and conflict that goes with it.

By the time of his death in 2021 he had published 49 books and had sold more than 140 million copies. Several of Smith's novels have also been turned into movies and TV shows.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Selected publications

Publications by Wilbur Smith

Het goud van Natal / Wilbur Smith. - Amsterdam : De Boekerij, 2007

Jakhalzen van het paradijs / Wilbur Smith. - Amsterdam : De Boekerij, 2007

Vlammend veld, heftig hart / Wilbur Smith. - Amsterdam : De Boekerij, 2007

The triumph of the sun : a novel of African adventure / Wilbur Smith. - London [etc.] : Pan Books, 2006

Moesson  / Wilbur Smith. - Amsterdam : De Boekerij, 2003

Publications about Wilbur Smith and his work

Rethinking Authorship in Film: The Struggle for Creative Control between Michael Klinger (Producer) and Wilbur Smith (Writer) / Andrew Spicer. - Presented at 'Visible and Invisible Authorships', University of York, 27 September 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2023

Wilbur Smith´s Egyptian novels / Martina Urbánková. - Univerzita Pardubice, 2011

A reclamation of masculine space Wilbur Smith's manipulation of space in the Courtney Saga / Isabel Santaularia Capdevila. - The Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies (AEDEAN), 2001

The legend of the lost city; or, the man with Golden Balls / Martin Hall.
In: Journal of southern African studies, 1995, Vol.21 (2), p.179-199

Beware Wilbur Smith's gaboon adder : purple prose, propaganda and politics in South Africa / Richard Peck.
In: Journal of contemporary African studies, 1994, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 151-178

An Interview With Wilbur Smith, Book Break 2009

Timeline of Rhodes University alumni via DBpedia and Wikidata