South African novelist Wilbur Smith dead at 88
South African writer Wilbur Smith died on November 13, 2021 at his home in Cape Town.
HAIDER SHAH AFP / File
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South African writer Wilbur Smith, author of many adventure novels translated around the world, died on Saturday in Cape Town at the age of 88, his editor announced.
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World bestselling author Wilbur Smith died unexpectedly this afternoon at his Cape Town home, after a morning of reading and writing, with his wife Niso by his side,
" a statement
read
on
the Wilbur Smith Books website.
Wilbur Smith was the author of 49 novels translated into some 30 languages, which have sold a total of 140 million copies, according to the publisher.
A master of the adventure novel
Master of the adventure novel, inspired by his own life, from a lion attack to his months spent in a gold mine to document a novel.
Born on January 9, 1933 in Northern Rhodesia, present-day Zambia, to British parents, he had known fame from his first novel in 1964 with
When the lion is hungry
, the story of a young man who grows up on a farm livestock in South Africa.
He then developed the saga of this Courtney family on a series of thirteen novels telling the destiny of a family over more than three centuries, from the beginning of the colonization of Africa by the Europeans until apartheid in Africa. from South.
"
The history of Africa
"
The heart of his work is “
the history of Africa
”: “
I wrote about blacks and whites.
I wrote about hunting, gold mining, parties and women,
”said the best-selling author in his autobiography published on his official website.
His second great family saga, after that of the Courtneys, is that of the Ballantyne family, which begins with
The Eye of the Falcon
.
From the first Dutch settlers to apartheid and decolonization, he paints a history of South Africa and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where he himself was born to British parents in 1933.
(
with
AFP
)
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