Wilbur Smith: A rich life – getting lost in the bush and attacked by lions

Zambia-born novelist Wilbur Smith chronicled dramatic adventures on the African continent, creating internationally-acclaimed fiction that drew on his own action-packed life.

He gained recognition in 1964 with his debut novel When the Lion Feeds. “I wove into the story chunks of early African history. I wrote about black people and white. I wrote about hunting and gold mining and carousing and women,” he said in a biography on his official website.

He also leant on meticulous historical research and his own extensive travels, establishing a method he would use over a career spanning five decades in which he wrote nearly 50 novels. Another golden rule came from his publisher, Charles Pick.

“He said: ‘Write only about those things you know well.’ Since then I have written only about Africa,” Smith said.

Also a scuba diver and mountain climber in his time, Smith was not afraid to throw himself into his research, saying that for his 1970 novel Gold Mine he took a job in a South African gold mine for a few weeks.

“I was a sort of privileged member of the team, I could ask questions and not be told to shut up,” he told the Daily Telegraph of his experience.

ALSO READ: Legendary author Wilbur Smith dies aged 88

Smith studied at Rhodes University, intending to become a journalist until his father said, as he recounts on his website, “Don’t be a bloody fool … Go and find yourself a real job.”

There followed a “soul-destroying” stint as a chartered accountant, during which he turned to fiction.

The success with When the Lion Feeds encouraged him to become a full-time writer and lead to the Courtney series, which runs up to The Tiger’s Prey, published in 2017, more than 50 years after the first book.

The four-part Ballantyne series is themed on colonial wealth and the racial struggle in the former Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe.

There is also a series on Egypt, while standalone novels include The Sunbird (1972) and Those in Peril (2011).

Answering a question on his site about the secret of his success, he says it is about “embroidering” a bit on real life. “I write about men who are more manly and beautiful women who are really more beautiful than any women you’d meet,” he says, confirming he sometimes worked with co-writers.

Published in 2018, his autobiography On Leopard Rock chronicles his own adventures, including being attacked by lions, getting lost in the African bush and crawling through the precarious tunnels of gold mines.