The Charm of Africa

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McCall Smith, on extended leave from his job, is prolific. He has written more than 30 children's books (he has two daughters--one at college, the other younger) and a monograph on the criminal law of Botswana. A new series of books about Isabel Dalhousie, a female gumshoe in Edinburgh, is well under way; the first installment, The Sunday Philosophy Club, is due out in September. A satirical novel about academics, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, is expected in early 2005. And the sixth Ramotswe book is already finished. How does he manage it all? "I'm very lucky," he says. "I don't have to make a great effort." He estimates his writing speed at an astonishing 1,000 words an hour. That leaves him plenty of time to meet with director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) about a film adaptation of the Ramotswe books, fulfill his duties as a member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Commission and practice the bassoon with his group, the Really Terrible Orchestra.

His growing fame is not so easily dispensed with. But it has its upside, celebrity fans. At yet another literary-society gathering, this one in Beverly Hills, Calif., McCall Smith had a very-not-traditionally built gate crasher, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "I noticed Mr. Flea had the word LOVE tattooed across his right hand," he said later. "Many of my readers do not. It's nice to have a variation." Politely put, as ever.