41 Facts About Wilbur Smith

Wilbur Addison Smith was a Northern Rhodesian-born British-South African novelist specializing in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries.

Wilbur Smith gained a film contract with his first published novel, When the Lion Feeds, which encouraged him to become a full-time writer.

Wilbur Smith went on to write three long chronicles of the South African experience, which became best-sellers.

Wilbur Smith acknowledged his publisher Charles Pick's advice to "write about what you know best"; his work focuses on southern African ways of life, with emphasis on hunting, mining, romance, and conflict.

Wilbur Smith's father was a metal worker who opened a sheet metal factory and then created a 25,000-acre cattle ranch on the banks of the Kafue River near Mazabuka, by buying up a number of separate farms.

Wilbur Smith was a boxer, a hunter, very much a man's man.

Wilbur Smith's mother loved books, read to him every night and later gave him novels of escape and excitement, which piqued his interest in fiction; however, his father dissuaded him from pursuing writing.

Wilbur Smith attended boarding school at Cordwalles Preparatory School in Natal.

Wilbur Smith tutored Smith on how to achieve dramatic effects, to develop characters, and to keep a story moving forward.

For high school Wilbur Smith attended Michaelhouse, a boarding school situated in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.

Wilbur Smith felt that he never "fitted in" with the people, goals and interests of the other students at Michaelhouse, but he did start a school newspaper for which he wrote the entire content, except for the sports pages.

Wilbur Smith wanted to become a journalist, writing about social conditions in South Africa, but his father's advice to "get a real job" prompted him to become a tax accountant.

Wilbur Smith attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Cape Province, Union of South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in 1954.

However, the business ran into financial difficulties forcing Wilbur Smith, who was by now 25 and divorced to take a job in 1963 as a tax assessor at the Inland Revenue Service in Salisbury.

Wilbur Smith had hunted elephant both as sport and to provide meat for his family.

Courtney Wilbur Smith had a magnificent moustache and could tell wonderful stories that had helped inspire his grandson.

In 2012, Wilbur Smith said When the Lion Feeds remained his favourite because it was his first to be published.

However, the money enabled Wilbur Smith to quit his job in the South African taxation office, calculating he had enough to not have to work for two years.

Wilbur Smith's second published novel was The Dark of the Sun, a tale about mercenaries during the Congo Crisis.

Wilbur Smith did not originally envision the Courtney family from When the Lion Feeds would become a series, but he returned to them for The Sound of Thunder, taking the lead characters up to after the Second Boer War.

At the time he was writing The Sound of Thunder in a caravan in the Inyanga mountains in November 1965 Ian Wilbur Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesian independence.

Around this time, Wilbur Smith wrote an original screenplay, The Last Lion which was filmed in South Africa with Jack Hawkins; it was not a success.

Wilbur Smith admitted to being tempted by movie money at this stage of his career but deliberately wrote something that was a complete change of pace, The Sunbird.

Wilbur Smith embarked on a new series of historical novels, centering around the fictitious Ballantyne family, who helped colonise Rhodesia: A Falcon Flies, Men of Men, The Angels Weep and The Leopard Hunts in Darkness.

Wilbur Smith stayed with the Courtney family for Power of the Sword, Rage, A Time to Die and Golden Fox.

Wilbur Smith returned to the Courtneys for Birds of Prey and Monsoon, then published another Ancient Egyptian story, Warlock.

In December 2012, Wilbur Smith left Pan Macmillan, moving to HarperCollins.

In 2017 Wilbur Smith moved again, this time joining Bonnier Zaffre, which gave them language rights to eight new books, together with the English language rights to 34 of Wilbur Smith's backlist titles.

Wilbur Smith was working for his father when he married his first wife, Anne Rennie, a secretary, in a Presbyterian Church on 5 July 1957 in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.

Wilbur Smith then met a young divorcee named Danielle Thomas, who had been born in the same town and had read all of his books, and thought they were wonderful.

Wilbur Smith destroyed my relationship with them because she had a son from a previous marriage and wanted him to be the dauphin.

Wilbur Smith dedicated his books to her until she died from brain cancer in 1999, following a six-year illness.

Wilbur Smith met his fourth wife, a Tajik woman named Mokhiniso Rakhimova, in a WHSmith bookstore in London on 18 January 2000.

Wilbur Smith was a law student studying at Moscow University and younger than him by 39 years.

When Wilbur Smith married Danielle Thomas, he cut off contact with his son Shaun and daughter Christian.

Wilbur Smith's father had owned a Tiger Moth during the period when the family was cattle ranching.

Wilbur Smith followed in his footsteps gaining a private pilot's licence in the mid-to-late 1960s, which allowed him to fly all over Africa.

Wilbur Smith had homes in London, Bishopscourt in Cape Town, Switzerland and Malta.

Wilbur Smith died unexpectedly on 13 November 2021 at his Cape Town home; he was 88.

Wilbur Smith said he has tried to live by the advice of Charles Pick, his first publisher:.

Several of Wilbur Smith's novels have been turned into movies and TV shows, including:.