- The Ladies' Detective Agency started selling in the US, interestingly enough.

I think they were traumatized after 9/11 and needed some soothing.

I think they found Mma Ramotswe's company reassuring - she is someone you want to sit down and drink tea with.

And there is a lot of tea drinking in the books, says Alexander McCall Smith.

Always writes happy endings

The Ladies' Detective Agency turns 25 next year.

Since the first book came out in 1998, it has been translated into 46 languages ​​and sold more than 30 million copies.

But the books about Mma Ramotswe are far from the only ones he has written.

In total, Alexander McCall Smith has written 115 books - and they all have one thing in common.

Do you always write happy endings? 

- Yes, almost always.

Probably always, he tells Kulturnyheterna.

- This world is in some sense drowned in tears.

But that is not the only truth.

There is another story too, a more positive story.

And I believe writers have the right to decide which part of the spectrum of human experience they want to focus on, says Alexander McCall Smith.

Accused of cultural appropriation

But the series has also been criticized because their author, a white man, writes about an African woman in another part of the world.

A discussion of "cultural appropriation" has been held alongside the success. 

- I understand what people mean.

But I believe that stories are universal and that human experiences should be shared.

My novels are set all over the world: Scotland, Australia… 

Sweden

.

- Even Sweden!

There you see!

Wrote a series about petty crime in Malmö

Alexander McCall Smith believes that as long as you don't lie about whose business you're on, and focus on the good, it's perfectly permissible to write about anything even without doing research.

One of Alexander McCall Smith's lesser-known novel heroes is named Ulf Varg and solves crimes in Malmö, Sweden.

The genre calls McCall Smith

Scandinavian Blanc.

- Ulf Varg is an inspector at the Department for Sensitive Crimes.

And of course he takes on ridiculous cases.

I have taken the outside world's cliché image of Sweden and enhanced it.

It has really been fun to write, says Alexander McCall Smith.